Eighteen

Disclaimer: Just own the words, not the folks.

Eighteen

Hoshi Amatsu has been Seto Kaiba’s secretary for a little over two years, and she’s never seen him as happy as he’s been the last eight months.

Or at least the last eight months prior to two weeks ago Saturday.

Since that fateful day when he fired and the rehired her within the span of 20 minutes, he hasn’t been the same. When she came in that Monday morning, Mr. Kaiba left his office just long enough to tell her to cancel all of his appointments for the week. She saw him again that Thursday afternoon when she went to give him his itinerary for his Friday morning trip to Kyoto.

At the time, she’d barely held her gasp of surprise at the sight of him. He obviously hadn’t slept in days, and given that he still wore the same suit from Monday, he obviously hadn’t been home either.

“Um, Mr. Kaiba,” she’d finally managed, “here are your itinerary and boarding passes for tomorrow’s trip.”

She’d moved to place the prepared folder on his desk when he’d uttered a terse, “I’m not going. I told you to cancel all of my appointments.”

“I did, sir. But this is the quarterly meeting with the CEO and the board. The CEO insisted that...”

“Are you deaf? I told you I’m not going!” he’d snapped.

And he didn’t.

The CEO, Gozaboro Kaiba, had been furious, but wasn’t able to force Mr. Kaiba to go either.

Now, moving into week three, she barely recognizes the sullen, angry, withdrawn man who spends most days staring out the window, usually wearing clothes that were days old and looking more completely disheveled than she’s ever seen him.

It’s Tuesday again when she realizes that he also hasn’t been going to his usual Tuesday night dinner meeting. For months he’d been meeting the same client for dinner at 6:30pm on Tuesdays. He hasn’t had her cancel the appointments. He just hasn’t gone.

Suddenly, it hits her...

They weren’t dinner meetings; Mr. Kaiba had been seeing someone!

She starts going through old calendar entries on her computer and old phone messages, hoping to find a name to contact the person. Maybe she could let the person know how Mr. Kaiba has been acting, since he’s obviously been affected by their separation. Hoshi thinks that maybe if the person knew, they’d get back together again and...

Abruptly she realizes that she’s meddling in Mr. Kaiba’s personal affairs, which he definitely wouldn’t appreciate. She quickly stops her search and decides to make him some coffee.

“Much safer,” she mumbles to herself as she brews a fresh pot in the break room.

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‘His temper scares me,’ he remembers Yami’s voice saying.

“He said sometimes,” he whispers, attempting to reassure himself, and failing again.

‘He’s so afraid of me he hasn’t even called about the stuff I left at his house,’ he muses.

“Then again, since he was breaking up with me anyway, he probably just doesn’t want to see me anymore,” he murmurs.

‘And he’s afraid of you,’ his mind supplies.

“It’s good that I didn’t tell him,” he affirms, staring at the growing pile of work on his desk.

Looking up at the sound of his office door opening, he catches his secretary approaching.

“I’m on my way home, Mr. Kaiba, but I thought you might need some fresh coffee,” she smiles, moving a pile of paper to the side and placing the steaming mug on his desk.

“Thank you, Hoshi,” he states evenly.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Kaiba. Goodnight!”

“Goodnight,” he replies soberly as she closes the door behind herself.

Taking a sip of the welcome dark liquid, he notes the time on the clock over the door, 6:35pm.

Just a few weeks ago he’d be watching Yami dance for him right around this time…

Turning back to the piles on his desk, he begins the monumental task of trying to get on with his life.

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Sitting in the middle of his living room floor after having thrown Jou out for what will certainly be the last time, Yami broods about how stupid he’d been. True, it had been months since he and Seto had...separated, but why he thought to hook up with Jou is beyond him. They’d only been going out for two days, TWO DAYS, before Yami caught Jou in a compromising situation with Yami’s new next-door neighbor, Mai Valentine.

“That hound dog didn’t even care that it was a girl!” he grumbles. “I swear he’ll fuck anything that moves! ‘Gay’ my ass!”

Yami is extremely glad that he and Jou hadn’t had sex. It’s not that he isn’t attracted to the taller blonde it’s just that part of him continues to feel that he’d be betraying Seto to sleep with anyone else.

Especially since they haven’t officially broken up in the first place.

“I still have his clothes,” he remembers sadly. Not that he can take them back now; well, maybe after having them dry cleaned.

With a sigh, he gets up and trudges into his bedroom to confront his dirty little secret. There, rumpled up under his covers, are the three dress shirts, undershirts, boxers and pants that Seto dropped on his floor three months ago. Jou couldn’t understand why Yami wouldn’t let him into his bedroom after that day; this is why.

That night, after the events that led to Seto running away from him, he’d been completely unable to sleep and had decided to get up and clean the apartment instead. In his cleaning, he’d decided to take Seto’s clothes out of the suit bag and hang them up until he’d figured out what he wanted to do with them. He could have left them in the bag, but he’d remembered Seto mentioning that suit bags sometimes leave an odd smell in his clothes, and he hadn’t wanted his love’s clothes to smell. So, he’d unzipped the bag, meaning to take everything out, fold the bag up and put it away. He wasn’t prepared for what had happened next.

Seto had a habit of spraying a touch of cologne on his suit jackets before putting them into his suit bag when he traveled or stayed over at Yami’s house. Not enough to be overpowering, but just enough to waft through the rest of his clothes in the suit bag, eliminating the need to add more when he got dressed. When Yami had opened the bag after more than 18 hours, the scent had assaulted him in a way he couldn’t have expected. He’d found himself sitting on his bedroom floor, crushing the clothes to his face, stifling tears of loss with each gasp of cologne.

Wanting to preserve the scent and the memories accompanying them, he’d returned the clothes to the bag that night. A few days later, he’d consoled himself with a quick gulp of the enticing aroma when he couldn’t sleep. A week after that, he’d worn one of the t-shirts to bed. When he’d nearly slept the scent off a few days later, he’d switched to a pair of the overlong boxers until he’d nearly slept them cologne free as well.

One night he’d donned the first of the dress shirts, the one that had been under the suit jacket for nearly three weeks, and Seto’s cologne had overwhelmed his senses, leaving him an emotional wreck and even invading his dreams.

Over the following weeks, he’d alternated articles of clothing to sleep in or with, equally reveling in and hating the erotic dreams they sometimes brought. He’d kept the suit bag zipped up hoping that action would preserve the scent, as he’d usually wash the clothes and then put them back into the bag for an extended period of time. He’d known his obsession wasn’t healthy, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to try everything in his power to somehow keep Seto with him.

After the first two weeks away from Seto, he’d wanted to run back to him and apologize for everything, but his sister and Jou had counseled him against that course of action. He’d known Anzu was only looking out for his well being and foolishly thought Jou had been too, but his now permanent ex had apparently been working with an ulterior motive.

“He’d just wanted me all to himself,” Yami muses, climbing under the covers and scrunching the rumpled clothing into his face.

The scent is very faint now, but still strong enough to bring him some comfort after the impossible day he’s had. Soon enough though, he won’t be able to smell it at all, losing his last tie to Seto.

‘Then what will I do?’ he wonders unhappily.

Snuggling deeper into the clothes and his covers he forces himself to relax so that he can go to sleep and ignore the tears prickling in the corners of his eyes. Instead, he finds himself remembering the first trip he and Seto had ever taken together. It had also been the first time Yami found out about Seto’s habit of spraying cologne on his suit jacket. They’d taken an overnight jaunt to Fukuoka, Seto surprising him with a casual, “Let’s go somewhere different for dinner,” when he’d picked him up early that evening. It hadn’t been until they’d pulled up at the airport that Yami had known they were going on a trip.

That plane ride had also marked his and Seto’s entry into the mile-high club. With a moan, Yami slides his hand inside the borrowed boxers, his mind helpfully dropping him into the memory.

The door to Seto’s private jet had barely closed before Yami found himself straddling his boyfriend’s lap and being kissed senseless. As the plane lifted off the ground, Seto was pulling Yami’s shirt over his head. By cruising altitude, both he and Seto were topless and Yami was feasting on the other’s surprisingly dark nipples. Though not as sensitive as Yami’s, Seto had still been reduced to a low growl and an unsatisfied squirm by the dancer’s talented tongue and teeth.

Within 30 minutes of the 2-hour flight, they’d both been naked and on the floor of the spacious jet.

“Should we get on the couch?” Yami had panted in between nibbles up the inside of Seto’s thigh.

“T-too short,” Seto had moaned as his boyfriend had finally stopped teasing him and begun licking up the side of his painful arousal.

Yami’s hand tightens around his aching erection as he recalls the rest of that flight. Hand flying up and down his shaft, he can almost feel what happened next.

Seto had brought him nearly to completion by teasing his nipples and then again with a fantastic blowjob before prepping Yami’s thoroughly relaxed body and fucking him into the carpet.

Gasping, Yami’s whole body shakes in release, much like it did that day on the plane. But unlike that day on the plane, Seto isn’t there to help him clean up. And unlike that day, there won’t be a spectacular meal waiting in the hotel room after they land. Nor will he and Seto be spending the night passionately making love afterward.

The tears that had only been prickling before his trip down memory lane now burst out of his eyes with a vengeance, sobs wracking his spent frame as he clutches the rest of Seto’s clothes to his face.


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He hates traveling.

Well, he hates traveling for work.

Specifically, he hates traveling with his stepfather for work.

The man always insists they go out drinking and carousing with clients and/or his board members wherever they go, usually winding up hung-over and cranky the next morning and taking it out on Seto, sometimes violently. Then the next evening they’d go out and do it again.

This time Seto sports more bruises than usual because of what he’d said to Gozaboro when the man tried to make him take a female hooker last night.

“Leave me the fuck alone, you bastard,” he’d yelled. “I hate you! I wish you’d fucking drop dead!”

It isn’t entirely his fault that he’d finally said what he’s wanted to for years. That bastard had insisted he drink a lot more that he was used to and it left him with much less control over his actions than if he’d stayed closer to sober.

Not that Gozaboro cared about that at the time.

The first punch had hit Seto in the jaw, and knocked him over a low table in the sitting room of the clandestine establishment. The second had bruised a rib. The third had blackened his eye. Numerous punches had landed as body blows before the security guards were able to pull his stepfather away. He’d spent a pain-filled night being observed in the hospital, desperately missing the warmth of Yami’s body and spirit.

When he finally gets back in Domino all Seto can think about is how much he needs to wrap himself in his love’s arms. Speeding from the airport, he’s parked his rental car in the lot of the familiar apartment building before reality asserts itself. He’s so desperate to see Yami he’s completely forgotten that…

“We’re not together anymore because he’s terrified of me,” he murmurs sadly.

A dejected frown slides over his face as he futilely attempts to ignore the ache in his chest. Starting the car, he slowly backs up and pulls away.

On the plane home, all he’d wanted, all he’d needed, was to drown himself in Yami’s touch.

After a few hours driving around aimlessly, he accepts his loss much deeper than he had before and for the next few days he sequesters himself in his suite of rooms.