Shame

AN: Getting in the meat of the plot, guys :) Enjoy. 

Shame

a YuGiOh! fanfic by Jonouchi Katsuya and yllimilly

Yugi/Jonouchi, Anzu/Yugi



Chapter Five



.



“I’m home,” Jonouchi called.



He looked around the apartment to see what he had to do. Everything looked pretty clean. Nothing looked out of place or left out. Jonouchi could never help but to wonder if there was something somewhere that his father had asked him to take care of when he wasn’t paying attention. Being at home didn’t feel relaxing to him; it was nerve-racking.



Tonight he didn’t really feel like second-guessing the cleanliness of the bathroom sink or when the towels had last been washed. He was too engrossed with his utter failure of a day.



Yugi.



Jonouchi shouldn’t have let that happen. It was bad, bad, bad.



Normally he would have kicked all those guys asses without even caring if he would get suspended. And Honda might’ve joined in a little, even though some of these guys were buddies on the various sports teams he was on.



Jonouchi looked at the phone. Normally, calling Yugi wouldn’t be an issue but, his dad had just complained about the phone bill not too long ago. He mostly yelled at him about one number that was called. It was the only phone call Jonouchi really made.



This whole thing was stupid. On the one hand, that was a really lame excuse not to apologize to his best friend. On the other, surely there was a way not to attract his father’s wrath; he really didn’t need any lectures of worse, angered shouts from a potentially drunk man. The man had started hitting the bottle a little more often he should now that the liquor store close by was running a clearance sale on cheap scotch.



Jonouchi thought for a few more moments before finally deciding that he had to see Yugi.



He looked at the door.



.



Yugi sat on the edge of his bed, looking outside through the thin slits of his horizontal blinds. He saw the fast food sign across the street, the traffic lights, and the KC towers rising above the smog of downtown Domino. He could make out the shapes even though half the picture in front of him was obstructed by the blinds.



This is how I see reality, he thought. I can only see so much out of every slide, and I make up the blind spots in between. I make them what I want them to be.



Oh Jou.



He sighed. Well he would’ve sighed, if he didn’t have a huge lump caught in his throat.



Yugi knew he shouldn’t have allowed himself to believe his bullied days were over. Today had been a bitter reminder. He didn’t know what was worse; to hear the guys’ candid comments about his physique, to know that they knew he was there when they said them, or to see Jonouchi not react at all.



Honda - that was no big deal. He was always more of a sheep anyway, and he had some ties with the jocks that he didn’t want to damage. He had a reputation to maintain, and it was a miracle already that he also be friends with the little nerdy shrimp Yugi Mutou.



So when Jonouchi called himself his best friend, was that just a white lie? A funny friendly thing to say just to make Yugi feel good about himself? When Jonouchi kissed him that night, Yugi had thought it to be at least affectionate. It was weird and unexpected and awkward but it had definitely been, on Yugi’s part at least, affectionate. His mind might not have been fully functional when it happened but his heart had been at the right place.



And it had just felt right. Well Yugi definitely wished it to be- oh...



He swallowed a lot of nothing to keep the tears at bay.



Now he was more ready than ever to believe it might have purely have happened out of a desire to... experiment. To see what an experience with another male would feel. To see how far Yugi would let him go? To see, maybe, how far Jonouchi was himself willing to let himself go.



He knew Jonouchi hadn’t grown up in a house especially tolerant towards homosexuals. Not that Yugi was one himself; he was dating a girl, after all. And he was very much attracted to her body, to her hips and her breasts - not that he didn’t appreciate her for who she was. She was his best female friend, and she had a wonderful personality, even though she had acted a little strange recently.



This was his fault. He cheated on Anzu. He deserved all of this. He didn’t really have the right to be able to keep everything at once. They said friends and lovers don’t match.



“Yugi...?”



Yugi looked to see Jonouchi’s hair and one eye peering from his cracked open bedroom door.  He looked away before he could process that he had definitely not heard Jonouchi coming in.



“Um, I’m gonna come in, okay?”



He did.



“Uh, if you don’t want me to come in, uh...” The rest trailed off in a puddle of ‘it’s okay I’ll understand’.



Yugi shook his head as if to dismiss’ Joey self-rejection. “It’s okay,” he started, but stopped immediately because his voice was cracking. He then took a deep breath to calm himself down, smooth the edges of his thoughts. He didn’t want to mess up. He didn’t want to beat around the bush. But he didn’t want to express himself rudely, without thinking, either.



“Hey, I wanted to say, um...”



Yugi could tell by the quality of his voice that Jonouchi was still standing in the doorway, forbidding himself to step any closer. At this very moment he wanted to drop every ounce of guilt and resent he’d been harboring towards himself and Jonouchi the whole time. But he still felt shaky and his voice was sure to betray him if he were to speak right now. He let out a deep breath in staccato breaks, swallowing harder, wishing the sting in his tear ducts to just leave him alone.



“Yugi, um,” Jonouchi started, his voice uncharacteristically low, “I was... You know, today...” Yugi still faced away, closing his eyes and biting his lips.



He had no idea how badly he’d been wanting to hear this. His chest felt heavier by the second.



“I haven’t been a good friend today.”



Silence stilled in the room.



Maybe this was the right time to listen to Anzu’s advice, and to expect a little bit more out of people. More precisely, to demand a better apology from a close person who had failed him in the worst of ways.



“I’ll-” Jonouchi started again, unnerved by Yugi’s silence. “I’ll kick their asses tomorrow I swear,” he added in a lighter tone that was meant to be humorous, to break the tension.



But that wouldn’t work on Yugi. “You know I don’t like violence,” he said solemnly.



He could hear Jonouchi shift his weight, play with the loose coins in his pockets.



“I know. I know I don’t really deserve for you to be always all forgiving and stuff. I mean, once was enough. Once was plenty.”



There had always been unspoken rules between them, that they wouldn’t ever discuss the state of their relationship before they became friends. Neither of them needed to remind themselves, and one another, how needy and weak they’d been before finding each other.



Yugi stood up to close the blinds completely, the metallic sound resonating through the otherwise silent room.



Jonouchi closed the door behind him.



There was no point in Yugi hiding from Jonouchi now. He turned to face Jonouchi, not caring whether or not the room was dark enough to conceal the dark red rims under his eyes.



He lowered his eyes to the ground, unable to uphold Jonouchi’s earnest gaze. Yugi didn’t want to read any pain into his best friend’s face; it would just be too much to bear.



Still, from the corner of his eyes, Yugi could see Jonouchi give his head a light shake, and step towards him until they were inches apart. When Jonouchi spoke his voice was low and raw.



“I know I shouldn’t but-”



He leaned in and ran a finger under Yugi’s chin, lifting his head up slightly.



Yugi closed his eyes, and let himself be kissed.



Then Jonouchi drew back.



Yugi opened his eyes, keeping them downcast. He encircled his arms around Jonouchi’s waist, where they fit perfectly. Jonouchi’s hand ran up to Yugi’s nape, holding his head as their lips intertwined again. Yugi’s spikes ruffled against the metal blinds behind him. Jonouchi leaned in again, not caring about putting himself in a slightly less comfortable position himself if it meant making sure that Yugi wouldn’t have to tiptoe or crane his neck too much. The softness of his lower lip between his own made him forget about the tension slowly building up in his back muscles.



Then Yugi threw a timid tongue in the mix, which made Jonouchi forget all about the necessity of this thing called balance. He instinctively pressed a leg between Yugi’s legs, sending both of them crushing in the blinds.



“I’m sorry,” Yugi said by reflex.



“I’m not,” Jonouchi replied, a wonderful gleam in his eye.



Yugi risked a glance at the bed.



Jonouchi looked down, risking a smile.



Yugi’s eyes widened as well but out of panic - his breath caught in his throat. He was obviously very much enjoying this, but what about Anzu?



Jonouchi firmly pressed his lips against Yugi’s forehead and left them there, holding Yugi tighter in his arms for a moment just to make sure he really was there, that this was real. Then he pulled Yugi off the crushed blinds, and nestled his head in the gap between Yugi’s head, and his shoulder.



“I don’t care what happens from here. I’m lost but I’m not sorry and I’m not hiding,” Jonouchi said softly against Yugi’s neck.



The closeness of Jonouchi’s voice sent a pleasant shiver run through Yugi’s spine - and planted a smile on his lips. Very much against his will.



And also against his will... He felt himself harden.



He pushed Jonouchi away. “This is wrong.”



He saw a glaze setting over Jonouchi’s eyes, as if he wasn’t registering. Oh gods had Jonouchi felt it? Was Jonouchi just as hard? Somehow Yugi grew even more aroused by the thought.



“I... I mean Anzu-” he stopped himself, feeling very low for bringing in that excuse.



“What about her,” Jonouchi said, his level voice indicating he very well knew what about her.



Yugi opened his mouth to speak, let out a defeated sigh and untangled himself from Jonouchi’s needy grip. He pursed his lips, swallowing the knot in his throat.



“I’m not being fair to her,” he realized. “Jou-” he started again, returning Jonouchi’s lost gaze, “It’s not even-” his voice cracked a little, “Jou- this is worse than cheating. I’ve been unfair to he from day one. I thought this was it, you know? I’ve always... Oh god.”



Yugi turned to face the streets of Domino again, spying at the rush hour traffic through a wider slit of the blinds.



He knew he wasn’t being a great communicator to Jonouchi; he was barely making sense of his own story at the moment. Of how safer he’d started to feel in the social ladder now that he had not only friends but a girlfriend on top of everything. And how reassuring it felt to know that the love, the affection was mutual between himself and Anzu, himself and Jonouchi.



How reassuring it was to feel like he was normal. Straight.



“Yugi... I said I wasn’t sorry, but I’ll stop and never try again if you want me to.”



The traffic lights, the fast food sign, the KC skyscrapers were blurry through his watery eyes. Yugi hugged himself. His arousal was long gone.



“I can leave. I’ll leave. I’ll leave you alone. I’m sorry.” Jonouchi shifted on his weight. Yugi could hear the ruffling of his pants.



“No.” Yugi looked up to the ceiling for answers, and to keep the moisture that had built up in his eyes to leak. “Wait,” he said in a breath, his chest heavy. He’d never felt so vulnerable. Not once in his life, from taking a blow from a bully or being rejected by a classmate for a team project, had he ever felt so exposed.



“When I-” His voice cracked; he calmed himself down through breathing. Jonouchi simply waited, silent and immobile behind him. “When I solved the puzzle- you remember?”



“I’m listening, Yugi. Just go on.”



Yugi smiled despite himself at Jonouchi’s tampered impatience. “The puzzle came with a wish. So I made one.”



“A wish.”



“Yeah,” Yugi chuckled. “I made one, because I was that desperate. I was so lonely, Jonouchi, you have no idea.”



He paused. This was both harder and easier to admit than he’d thought.



“So I wished for a friend. I wished for ‘true friendship’. I think that’s how I worded it. And for a while there, I thought it had worked. It took a while but at some point I believed in the miracle. I was worthy of a friend.”



He let out a deep breath and turned to Jonouchi, who wore a pained expression.



“You are my friend, Yugi- you really are. No matter what.”



Yugi shook his head sadly. “That’s not it, Jou.”



“I don’t get it. I thought-”



“We were friends Jonouchi, but it always felt so lonely being with you. I thought that I didn’t deserve to ask for more, that I should just consider myself lucky to have you as a friend to begin with.”



Jonouchi’s lips parted, his tongue thick and useless in his mouth.



“I... I had no idea,” he finally managed.



“I know. I didn’t really understand it, either.”



Jonouchi risked a small smile. He took his hands out of his pockets and held them out slightly. Yugi fell into his strong arms and just let himself be held, relief mingling with sorrow, mingling with the certainty that Jonouchi was and would always be there for him.