Stuff to Know:
/Yugi to Yami./
/Yami to Yugi./
"I know. I've been frightfully busy with the troupe and all." A carefully manicured hand waved at the ceiling with a hint of disdain. "I haven't had the opportunity to come back to good old Domino."
The French accent had begun to creep back into her voice. Yugi barely noticed. The sight of Tea this close, with her hair done just so, her perfect hands, the deep brown eyes and that dress was making oatmeal from his brain matter. The dress was made of some kind of slinky material that showed off her contours, leaving very little to the imagination. Yugi's was not just any imagination, however, and gladly filled in the spaces left blank. In the span of perhaps three seconds, his flush nearly matched Tea's dress. Not to mention her glorious eyes, now looking pleasantly into his own or the little curls framing her face that he had to fight back a tremendous urge to tuck behind her ears. It had been long.
"Yami...! Ow...! Table...! WOULD YOU CUT THAT OUT??" Joey's voice interrupted Yugi's pleasant examination of his childhood friend. Glad of the opportunity to get his body under control, he grinned as the distinctive pair approached. Yami was hauling Joey around by his foot at the moment. A sharp turn sent Joey crashing into a table headfirst, knocking most of the cutlery and probably some brain cells onto the floor. Spotting them again, Yugi's darker half turned in their direction.
"Have you seen Kaiba yet?" He inquired of them, heedless of the four tables separating them and the dirty looks he was being given.
"I'm sure he's delaying his arrival until he can make a proper entrance." Yugi offered when Tea said nothing after a moment.
Smirking, Yami crossed the distance between them and pulled Joey towards the doors. "I'll see he makes a grand entrance, be sure of that."
"Some people never grow up," A woman at a nearby table sniffed before sloshing the rest of a bottle of wine into her cup and downing it in a swallow.
Joey, futilely still trying to struggle from Yami's viselike grip, was looking a little beat up from the rough treatment. Upon spotting the table they had been sitting at, he began to wave his arms as if he was trying to take off, trying to appeal to Tristan or Bakura or Mai, who was glaring suspiciously at Yugi's companion. Reminded of her, he smiled and returned his gaze to Tea.
To his dismay he found she was staring at Yami's back, her lips slightly parted and a blush to match Yugi's on her cheeks. Feeling as if his nails were being ripped off with a pair of red-hot tongs, the man was helpless to look away as he watched her beautiful eyes travel down to Yami's pants, which fit him very well. Why can't she look at me like that? Yugi wondered with a hint of quiet desperation. To have those deep eyes caressing him with a glance... he shivered. As a breathy little sigh escaped her, Yugi tried not to notice how her chest strained against her dress when she did that and instead searched for a conversation topic.
"Where's Antoine?" he asked with a quick smile. He tried not to quail as Tea turned back to him. For less than an instant, he saw the heart and disappointment in her eyes before she banished them with pleasant cheer.
"Oh, around somewhere." She waved her hand negligently. "Slipped off to the men's room, I expect. I took the opportunity to come and talk with you."
"So you're doing well?" He resisted the urge to bounce on his feet, desperately wanting to keep her attention with him.
"Very well indeed." Tea said. "I shall have more time to come back to visit in the coming year, as I may choose which productions meet with my favor."
"I'm glad to hear that." Yugi nodded. "Are you working on any one right now?"
"Several." Somehow, the purely clinical once-over Tea executed on him was even worse than watching her undress Yami with her eyes. "And how are you? And Yami?"
There's the crux of it all. "We're doing all right. Yami runs the Turtle Game Shop now, and I'm teaching grade school."
"Your grandfather must be very glad of the help in the shop." Tea's eyes strayed to the door, where Yami had trapped Joey in the revolving doors. Somehow, they were soundproof, and Joey's holler at the top of his lungs went unheard, as did the pounding on the glass. Ignoring him entirely, Yami peered through the distorting glass to the parking lot outside.
A wild mop of white-blonde hair caught the corner of his eye, and Yugi saw that Bakura was heading towards the two of them. Check that, he amended. Yami Bakura was heading towards the frantic Joey and quietly smug Yami, who was in the process of telling his captive that he would run out of air and pass out if he kept shouting like that.
"Grandpa passed away a few months ago," Yugi said, on automatic as he watched the upcoming confrontation. It had been several years since Yami Yugi and Yami Bakura met face to face, but the confrontations were always interesting.
"Oh, Yugi, I'm so sorry!" Tea said with the first bit of genuine emotion she had displayed all evening. He glanced back at her and saw the genuine sorrow brimming in the depth of her sapphire eyes. Unable to help his increased attraction to the real Tea, he just nodded with eyes shadowed with the loss of the greatest influence in his life. The last of his birth family was gone now, with only Yami left. He no longer bothered to wonder what he would do without his guardian spirit slash darker half. It wasn't worth thinking about.
"Yami's running the Game Shop by himself, then?"
He just about did a face-fault right there and then. There obviously was only one thing on her mind. "Yes. He's very good at it, too. He says that running a company is only a few letters away from ruling a country."
Her laugh was a delight to him as well. It ran up and down his nerves and finally settled at the base of his spine. This is ridiculous, Yugi told it firmly. Tea is married! How can a crush last twenty years? Stop, you dirty mind!
/Aibou, you have strange thoughts./
Naturally, the statement only made him blush harder. /Sorry./
/Joey's getting bori... Bakura!/
The statement was out loud as well as mentally. Yugi eagerly turned half of his mind to that bit of entertainment. Yami Bakura and Yami Yugi faced off in the confident gaming positions they always adopted. Yamis never change, Yugi thought loudly enough so that his own would overhear. Yami spared him a dark thought.
"They never change, do they?" Tea echoed his thoughts. Anyone who was familiar with dark energy could see it stirring near the door. Anyone who wasn't just saw the bit of haze in the air that could easily be attributed to smoke or tipsiness. "I'm surprised they haven't killed each other yet."
"They actually look forward to these meetings," Bakura said from the table. "It gives them a challenge, I suppose. Come sit down, Tea."
"Yeah," Tristan nodded. "Since we grabbed you without your posse, come and visit your old friends for a while."
"They are awfully bothersome at times," Tea noted and slid into the chair that Yami had recently occupied. Yugi sat in his own, trying not to notice how close Tea was to him in the close confines of the overcrowded table. A flash of bare skin made him look down. He blinked and quickly looked at the ceiling, wondering why there was a cut in Tea's skirt nearly as long as her leg. It flashed Yugi quite a bit of finely toned thigh.
"Surrender the puzzle!"
"Never!"
"Can Yami Yugi even surrender the puzzle?" Leia asked with a slight frown.
"No," Yugi answered cheerfully, glad for the distraction, "That's my line. Yami's just making do."
To Tristan, Yugi said, "Double or nothing, I bet you Joey won't have to bark at Kaiba after all."
"Are you nuts? This is Yami we're talking about!" Tristan blinked at him. "You know better than I do that he never relents when he has the opportunity to give a game penalty."
"I have a good feeling," Yugi said, grinning. "Bet you."
"You must be crazy. You're on!"
"... game of wits, in the Shadow Realm!"
Yugi groaned and said aloud, "Does it have to be in the Shadow Realm, Yami? We're enjoying the show, and we'll miss it if you go there."
/This is not fun and games, aibou!/
"He says it's not fun and games," Yugi relayed to the rest of the table.
"My yami doesn't really want to go in the Shadow Realm," Bakura confided. "He's feeling a little shaky and out of practice."
"So's mine," Yugi agreed.
"Yugi!"
"Ryou!"
"Sorry, Yami," Bakura and Yugi said together. They grinned briefly at each other.
"See you there, Pharaoh." Yami Bakura snarled and disappeared. His opponent was an instant behind him.
"Will those two ever grow up?" Mai said disdainfully.
"I think it's cute when the two of them fight like brothers." Tea said with a hint of adoration in her voice. "When they're not fighting over someone's life."
"You wouldn't think it was so cute if you were actually around for the last twenty years," Mai shot back. "After watching them go at each other for ten years or so, it gets old."
"I'm sure you were around a lot." Tea said with a derisive roll of her eyes. "I'm sure that your itinerary every week included watching Yami Yugi and Yami Bakura duel."
"I was around more than you were," Mai retorted. "We get a post card perhaps once every six years from you. Usually not, and we hear from someone that Tea Gardener passed through town, but was in a 'dreadful hurry' so couldn't talk!"
"I haven't been back to Domino," Tea said with puzzlement.
"New York!" Mai snapped. "Or are Joey and I just beneath your notice?"
Yugi exchanged a confused look with Tristan. Beside Tristan, Leia just sighed and swirled the wine in her glass. Reminded of Mai's unfortunate husband, he glanced over and saw two vaguely familiar people that almost recognized trying to pry the revolving door open. Joey was still pounding on the glass, looking frazzled.
"I was busy!" Tea exclaimed, her visage darkening. "I have no free time when I'm on tour!"
"Not even time for lunch with two old friends? No time for lunch in twenty years, when you've been through twelve times?"
Joey was drawing more of a crowd now as people noted his frantic attempts at escape from the mysteriously stuck revolving door. Four grown men pushing together could not even make it budge.
/Yami, what did you do to the door?/ Yugi asked. He could feel Yami concentrating on doing something draining. His mind filled with the good humor of his darker half, who (although he would never admit it aloud) was enjoying his battle.
/Busy, Yugi!/ Yami said just before his attention was diverted again.
/It's starting to look a little suspicious. They might call someone to open it soon./ Yugi sipped at his glass and quickly glanced at Joey again. His old friend's face was completely red with all the attention and his own inability to escape. The door was beginning to fog with his breath and all the physical activity. /Once Mai stops ranting at Tea and she notices him - she is going to notice, you know, he's making himself noticeable - she is not going to appreciate the humor of the situation./
/Oh dear Ra./ Yami said with no small bit of horror.
Across the table from him, Bakura choked on his own drink and very obviously bit back a smile. Yugi had the impression that Yami Yugi had said something to Yami Bakura, who had relayed it back to his hikari. Tea and Mai continued to snipe at each other, not taking notice of the rest of the world.
"I'd have wanted to see Joey, perhaps, but he's a package deal with you these days, isn't he?" Tea retorted. "And you're so pleasant as a lunchtime companion!"
Yugi was alarmed with the sheer viciousness of the continuing conversation. He opened his mouth to say something to intervene and slow down the coming fight, but Mai's words cut him off in mid-vocalization.
"Oh, so that's how it is?" Mai examined her nails casually. "You're no prize yourself, you know. Oh, Antoine! Je t'adore! Je t'adore, mon petit chou! Little cabbage my foot. How many times have you been married now? Three times? Or four?"
"Three. It is not my fault that they overlooked my personality when they expressed their devotion to me." Tea replied primly. Yugi's brain stopped in shock. "But that wouldn't matter with you. You just needed someone who would worship the ground you walked on, and you could train him from there, hm? What could you care for Joey?"
"I'll tell you what," Mai bit off, slamming her palms on the table and making the utensils rattle. "He's handsome and caring and a doting father and loyal husband. I don't know how you could see that, since you obviously don't have a single loyal bone in your body. Antoine's just a little too French for you? He's just a little bit boring." As Tea opened her mouth, presumably to protest, Mai cut her off. "I heard you planning your next divorce to your little friends earlier. Don't bother denying it. And don't think any of us missed the way you were eyeing up Yami Yugi. And we're not going to let him become your next conquest, just to fulfill your twisted little impression of how the world works."
"Three husbands?" Yugi repeated weakly. "And getting another divorce? You never told me you had been divorced."
Tristan shot him a sympathetic look, being privy to his small friend's lifelong crush. Mai just lifted her chin and stared directly into Tea's eyes.
"Oh, Yugi, I was young. I didn't understand what a commitment marriage actually was." Tea didn't look at him, meeting Mai's challenging glare.
"You perhaps could have told your childhood friend that you had been through two other men and deemed them unworthy of your presence." Mai tilted her head and glared with her startling purple gaze. "Or was there some reason you didn't want to tell him? Perhaps a certain yami, who happens to be connected to our Yugi?"
Yami and Yami Bakura appeared out of thin air just then, near the growing crowd of people at the door. They still had their feathers ruffled and held their intimidation poses for a couple seconds. Simultaneously, they relaxed and began to ignore each other. Yami Bakura smirked at all the people gaping at them, whereas Yami Yugi was completely oblivious to their stares and shouldered through the crowd to the revolving door.
The crowd thinned and retreated from the two men who had apparently appeared from nowhere. The entire table was distracted from the battle between Tea and Mai by Yami Bakura's mocking laugh.
"What did you do to it, Pharaoh?"
Yami Yugi growled wordlessly and bent to examine the base of the door. The glass was completely fogged over, and only Joey's hands were visible where they scrubbed at the glass, trying to keep a space cleared and failing. "I just sealed it shut, that's all."
"Did you fuse the gears?" Yami Bakura doubled over with laughter as Joey attempted to see through the glass and pressed his nose against it. His breath fogged it over in a few seconds, and all that was visible was his nose and chin. "He's going to pass out from his own heat in a few seconds! No wonder that Valentine's so keen on him!"
Yugi faced the table again to see Mai shooting a glare of absolute venom at Yami Bakura's hikari, who was looking very nervous and trying to edge towards Tea. The owner of Vogue glanced out towards the doors and then back at Tea, apparently torn between her Tea-battle and her Joey-rescue-mission. With a contemptuous sniff at Tea, she stood, threw her napkin on the table and stalked off.
"I think she's going to kill them," Bakura said very, very quietly. His voice nevertheless carried in the silence, and his Yami shot him a smug look.
Yugi and Tristan couldn't say anything to that. On his part, Yugi was far too distracted by the greater threat to his sanity - Tea. Her exposed thigh did nothing for him at the moment. He was fixated on her profile.
"Is that why you didn't tell me?" Yugi said softly, only to her. "Because of Yami?"
Tea bit her lip, but refused to look at him. She slowly flushed as she realized that Yugi had noticed her fixation on his yami. "For other reasons too."
"Why? I'm your friend, aren't I?"
"I didn't want you or Yami to think badly of me." Tea offered, seeming glad that she could come up with an alternative reason.
"We didn't get enough news of you to be able to judge you." Yugi was surprised to hear bitterness in his voice. Tea was too. She turned away from Yami to look at him. Encouraged, he pressed on. "Couldn't you have found more time than once every few years to write? Or maybe call even once?"
"It... outside friends were discouraged at... at the Academy." Tea said faintly. "I just... sort of grew used to it. I thought you and... and Yami would get used to it too."
"I didn't." Yugi was surprised to hear himself admitting it. To him, it felt like an admission of his crush on her, and he felt heat flush his cheeks "I didn't ever. I thought about you all the time."
"Oh Yugi," Tea flashed him a sympathetic look, and Yugi was suddenly struck with the impression that she felt he was... quaint. Her expression was absolutely condescending. It disturbed Yugi. "I'm sorry to have caused you such distress."
That was it, her invisible mask. It had drawn over her features in a split second, masking the true Tea and presenting only the world-weary Madame Gardener. Yugi was shocked when a strong aversion to this Tea rose up in his gut. He had been attracted to her when she wore this persona before. What had changed? His heart thumped.
"The atmosphere at the Academy was so very competitive. I had barely a moment to breathe, let alone think of other matters. With class and practice, my time was just eaten up." Tea waved a hand absently. "After I graduated, I, of course, was immediately snapped up by a troupe. It was just such a whirlwind that I was completely taken by it, and only managed a postcard when I could think again. And then it was off to the next city, and the next. I am so sorry for your... inconvenience... but it was simply a part of this frantic lifestyle that I have chosen. But I think the benefits to... the both of us outweigh these minor matters, do they not? After all, you helped shape the person I have become today. That is not something just anyone may say."
Yugi's mouth slowly dropped open as the speech progressed, struck with a sense of unreality. This was Tea? Was it? Or had someone, most likely one of Yami's enemies, possessed her? Malik is in the Caribbean, Yugi thought hazily. I didn't think the Millennium Rod could stretch so far. That had to be it, she had to be possessed. Where was Tea's fierce spirit and dedication to her friends? That couldn't have just evaporated in a few years of fame, could it? Where had the Tea gone who had drawn the happy face on their hands to bind them together in his fight with Kaiba for his grandfather's Blue Eyes? What about when she had fought Mai for him, or held him when all else seemed lost? Where was the girl who came through innumerable battles merely on the strength of her heart? Who was this person so presumptuous as to be masquerading as Tea?
"Are you feeling all right?" Tristan demanded of Tea, apparently coming out of the stunned stupor where Yugi found himself still trapped. "Are you sick?"
"I am perfectly fine, thank you." Tea smiled ingratiatingly. She smoothly rose from the table, flashing her thigh again to Yugi, who was oblivious. He didn't see her obviously displayed dancer's grace and finely formed body, only turning over her words in his mind. "If you'll excuse me, I believe I see my husband has returned from the restroom. It was a pleasure seeing you three again. Give my regards to the rest."
She nodded and smiled at them. Tristan and Bakura returned the smile, but Yugi merely stared into her face with confused purple eyes. With a wink for him, she returned to her table and her muscle-bound husband. Yugi couldn't seem to make his mind move forward. The feeling that Tea didn't take him quite as seriously as she had once, the impression that she placed herself on some kind of pedestal above him, and the sight of the careful, slightly bored condescension in her face shattered something in his heart.
As soon as Tea was out of hearing, Leia smacked her husband across the chest. Tristan protested loudly and raised his arms to fend off more blows. "What?"
"You could have introduced me!" she hissed. "What was I supposed to do, just sit here and smile?"
"I didn't introduce you?" Tristan blinked and tapped his chin. "I didn't, did I? Ow! Stop hitting me, Lei-chan!"
"Don't call me that!" She huffed, but nevertheless stopped pounding on him, choosing instead to cross her arms and look at the dingy ceiling. "How rude could you get? Thanks a lot!"
"I was distracted by Joey and the Yamis!" Tristan protested. "And I would have said something after that, only Mai started in on her, and it would have been... uh, awkward."
"Well," Leia admitted after a moment's thought, "I suppose so. You're off the hook this time. Count your lucky stars."
Tristan looked like a man who had just been delivered from the brink, and decided to show his appreciation. Depositing a firm kiss on her mouth, he told her, "I do, every day."
She melted and pulled him down to her in another kiss. Bakura and Yugi took the cue to look away and back towards their yamis. Yugi was slowly coming out of his stunned state, mostly by denying it had happened altogether. Yami was exactly the distraction he needed.
"What do you mean, you can't get it open?" Mai demanded. "You sealed it, didn't you? Oh, someone unfog that!"
Yami bent at the base of the door where the metal plate had fused with the concrete. Yami Bakura leaned against the wall and smirked when he thought Mai wasn't looking at him. Joey was still scrubbing at the glass, trying to see both his wife and the progress Yami made, managing to look utterly ridiculous.
"That means you, Bakura!" Mai thundered, and Yami Bakura leapt off the wall and touched the glass, mumbling something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a death threat. The fog cleared as the white-haired spirit released a torrent of cold air inside. He managed a smirk at Joey's chattering teeth before Yami Yugi pushed him impatiently out of the way again.
"I should have known it was you blocking the door." An all-too familiar face approached from the side door, snapping a black umbrella closed. Seto Kaiba smirked at the visage of Joey in his glass prison, and coolly looked over Yami Bakura and Yami Yugi, who had risen to his feet with the sound of Kaiba's voice. Kaiba shared a tight nod with Yami, spared a glare that turned mutual in Yami Bakura's direction, and gave Mai another nod. He was about to address Yami Yugi when something else caught his eye. "What is Wheeler doing?"
Everyone (including the little crowd that had reformed when they saw that the world famous gamer and billionaire Seto Kaiba was here) turned to look at Joey, who looked like he was having little convulsions in his revolving door compartment. He was coughing or something, trying to address Kaiba. Then (for no apparent reason) he doubled over laughing and smacked the glass with a dull thud.
Apparently this was the last straw for the poor door, because fractures spread out from Joey's point of contact. They spread throughout the glass in seconds and paused like that for just long enough for everyone to blink. And then it shattered like the safety glass it was, spraying far into the mass of tables. Joey was left standing, stunned, in the wreckage that had been his prison.
As the glass finished settling, Yami Bakura started to laugh again. His voice echoed throughout the stunned silence of the room. Anyone who hadn't been paying attention to the action at the door before sure was now. The yami didn't seem to care that he was the focus of nearly a thousand pairs of eyes.
"So much for not causing a scene!" He clutched his mid-section with helpless mirth. "Wheeler, you just crack me up!"
And in the silence, he laughed even harder.
"Enough fooling around." Yami Yugi grabbed Joey by the shirt and deposited him by Kaiba. The crowd shifted their eyes from the white-haired laughing lunatic to the former pharaoh. Tristan shot Yugi a triumphant look. Yugi had the presence of mind to realize that he was about to lose his bet. "Let's finish this. Do it."
Joey drew himself up proudly, looked Kaiba in the face, and said:
"It's a pleasure to see you again, Kaiba."
"Likewise." Kaiba gave him a once-over before turning away to be escorted by his bodyguards to his seat. With the action apparently over, conversations began again around the room. Within seconds, Yami Yugi's next dangerous words were barely audible.
"What was that?" The dark spirit hissed.
"Me being polite to Kaiba?" Joey suggested with a smirk. He bypassed Yami to step over to his wife. Joey gathered her into his arms, dipped her low and firmly stole her next words with a kiss. When they took a break for air, he said, "Thanks for freeing me, Mai-chan."
"You better be grateful," she told him severely, but the impact of the statement was lost as she still rested in his arms. "You and I are going to have a long talk tonight."
"I'm always open to 'talk'." Joey kissed her again.
Yami crossed his arms and tapped his foot as the kiss went on... and on... and on... Finally he couldn't wait any longer. He tapped Joey's shoulder.
"We need to talk. Or rather, you need to bark," he told the blonde man.
"I did," Joey smiled down at Mai before releasing her. She sniffed and whipped out her compact to check her hair. He turned a rather smug smile on Yami Yugi. "And after all, you never said it had to be audible to him, just that I had to do it."
Yami blinked. And again blinked. Yugi started to grin, and Tristan stared in disbelief. The 'coughing' in the revolving door... Yami exclaimed, "That's not fair!"
"Sure it is. I did it. You saw me, no lying." Joey strode past Yami and flashed him another smile. "Stop being a poor loser."
"I did not lose!" Yami stomped after him, back to the table. "I do not lose!"
Yugi beamed at Tristan, who looked just as stunned as Yami. Slowly, he turned to face Yugi, mouth round with appreciation of Joey's newly discovered wit.
"He did bark." Tristan pointed out.
"But Kaiba didn't know that he barked," Yugi argued.
"But he still did bark."
"We don't know that for sure. He could have just been making the motions." Yugi barely noticed Yami, Joey and Mai rejoining them at the table, but Yami Bakura made himself noticeable by promptly sitting in Bakura's lap. Everyone stopped and stared at the two of them for a moment. Bakura was turning red, both probably from the combined weight of his yami and the stunned stares blaring down on him. Yami Bakura gave them one glare that said What's it to you? before completely ignoring them and inspecting the remains of Bakura's plate.
"Anyway, I think we tied." Yugi said to Tristan, breaking the silence.
"No way! How do you tie a bet? He barked, fair and square." Tristan wasn't slow to return to the fight. "Give up your twenty now."
"But Kaiba didn't realize he barked, if that was even a bark." Yugi said. "So it violated the spirit if not the letter of the bet, since the point was to humiliate Joey and Kaiba."
"That's true," Tristan said thoughtfully. "Maybe we did tie."
"You bet on us again?" Yami asked mournfully.
"Not only that, but he bet against you getting your penalty." Tristan said.
"Aibou, I'm hurt." "You were just about to get into your fight with Yami Bakura." Yugi said defensively. "And you know how involved you get in Shadow Realm fights."
While Yami grudgingly agreed, Yami Bakura held up a sharp, slightly dirty steak knife, catching everyone's attention and causing Joey to edge away from the two of them.
"The ironic thing is," Yami Bakura announced with a nasty smile, testing the edge of the knife on his thumb, "If Wheeler's old ball-and-chain hadn't gotten so worked up and the Pharaoh's twerp hikari hadn't told him what was going on, Wheeler might never have had to do it!"
"Yami, be nice," Bakura said in a pained voice. "I can't feel my feet. Can you find a chair?"
"Well, I suppose," Yami Bakura pouted and stood. "Since you don't love me any more, I guess..."
"Don't be ridiculous, of course I do." Bakura sighed. "We'll cuddle once we get home, I promise."
"I'll hold you to that, wimp." Yami Bakura smiled - actually smiled, without any trace of vindictiveness. He went over to the next table, said, "Excuse me," to one man, then grabbed the back of his chair and dumped him out of it. He returned to the table, chair in hand.
"So you agree, we're tied?" Yugi asked Tristan. "We're square?"
"I suppose," Tristan said, still watching Yami Bakura as he obviously struggled with the decision of who to sit next to, Joey or Mai. The yami's lip curled as he considered Mai. Resignation tinted his features as he slammed his ill-gotten chair down between Joey and Bakura. He apparently satisfied himself with moving the chair as close as physically possible to his hikari and sliding his hand onto Bakura's leg. The latter turned a deep shade of red, but smiled at his darker half.
"Stop leering at me like that, Ryou," said Yami Bakura. "You're making a scene. Another scene." He added, smirking at Mai over Bakura. She chose to ignore him.
"You're the one who sat on my lap." Bakura grinned at his darker half and then jumped and yelped as something else occurred out of sight.
/That... disturbs me./ Yami said, staring at the couple.
/I thought there was something going on./ Yugi returned, watching the interaction between the two white-haired men. /I knew there was something that kept him away from the puzzle and stopped him from hurting Bakura./
/I didn't believe you,/ Yami admitted. Bakura jumped and slapped his yami's hand away.
"Stop that!"
"Why?" Yami Bakura purred.
"Because it's embarrassing!"
"Admit that you like it, and then I'll stop."
/It looks like they're doing it to themselves./ Yami grumbled.
Yugi rolled his eyes. Yami noticed.
/You don't think that looks wrong? It's like incest./
/They're obviously not very alike, and they're no more closely related than you and I are./ Yugi said patiently. /A couple of thousand years is a lot of generations, Yami./
/But look at them. I can't ever imagine doing that with you./
Yugi wrinkled his nose at Yami, who did it almost identically back at him. They both smiled and turned back to the table to find Yami Bakura glaring daggers at them.
"You have something to say, Pharaoh, you can say it out loud." He said out loud, drawing the attention of the table away from the conversations that had sprung up again.
"We were just commenting on how lucky you were to find each other," Yugi inserted his words in before his Yami could say something undiplomatic. "And how we definitely weren't right for each other in that capacity."
"Oh." Yami Bakura looked temporarily mollified, but recovered quickly. "I guess not, considering that opposites attract. Weaklings don't really attract weaklings that well."
Yami Yugi raised his eyebrows at the challenge and leaned over Joey to come face-to-face with Yami Bakura. Joey pushed his chair back to give the two spirits plenty of dueling room, looking almost bored. Yugi, used to Bakura's comments revolving around his lack of stature, ignored the insult for the greater entertainment of the upcoming verbal battle.
"If I'm weak, you must be weaker," Yami said. "Since I've beat you any number of times, in fair fights."
"That's the problem with you, pharaoh," Yami Bakura said with a sneer. "In a real contest, you couldn't compare."
"You want a real contest?" Yami came within intimidation distance of Yami Bakura. "I'll show you real. I challenge you..."
Yugi groaned and pulled at the back of Yami's shirt. "Come on, Yami, let it go for one night."
"Listen to your little light, Pharaoh," Yami Bakura smirked. "Whipped, are we?"
"Yami, sit down." Bakura said without looking away from Mai and their conversation. "I like it, and I want you to keep doing it."
Yami Bakura gaped at his 'meek' partner before sitting back down and attending to his hikari's request.
"Yes, we are whipped." Yami smirked right back, plopping down in his chair. Joey pulled himself back up to the table and asked the temporarily unoccupied Yami a question about the Turtle Game Shop.
Yugi listened into the conversations proceeding around him, not feeling inclined to join into any of them. Beside him, Yami, Joey and Mai talked about the ins and outs of running a business. The Bakuras were having an inaudible conversation between them; gentle gazes and roaming hands the only indicator of what was being said, and Tristan and Leia were neck-deep in a conversation involving a second mortgage.
Feeling slightly lonely, he glanced around, looking for Tea. He found her in her large group, again talking to a gaggle of fans that hung on her every word. By chance, she glanced up and caught his gaze with her deep blue eyes. The world hung still for a moment as he examined her cool, collected gaze. Then the fog cleared from his brain and suddenly everything made perfect sense.
He knew why he felt left out in his best friends' company. He knew why he always felt as if something was missing in his life, in his day-to-day existence. It was something that he couldn't help, a hole that Yami, or his kids, or even his Grampa had never been able to fill.
Up until just now, he realized that he had been waiting for Tea - his first love, his lifelong crush, and his then-and-perhaps-still friend. Something deep inside him had decided to 'wait' for her, as if she was going to come running back to him, realize that it wasn't Yami that she loved but him. Someday, she would give up running all over the globe and realize that home really was the best place, give up her idiot French husband, and come back to Yugi. As she smiled distantly and looked away from him, the moment was broken but the clarity remained.
He realized that this deepest wish was never, ever going to happen. Tea was in love with power. It was that she admired in Yami - his dark, dangerous energy, that supernatural ability to completely crush all of his opponents. And now her fame brought her a measure of power. The fans that hung on her every word were her minions, the display of her power. She'd never give that up now that she had a taste of it, not for as long as she could hold onto it. Where the loyalty to her friends had gone, Yugi had no idea. Perhaps it was buried deep within her personality now, and would someday emerge again. But he knew something for sure. He could no longer keep waiting for Tea. It just wasn't healthy for him, and not fair to her. He had to pick himself up and move along.
To his surprise, he found that he was already well on his way to moving on. Something about Tea's behavior tonight just spurred it like an impatient horse on its way. Watching her artfully displayed limbs, he no longer saw the sole object of his desire, but a mature, married woman - a woman who used to be his friend, but who he now knew only distantly. She was still beautiful, it was true. However, it wasn't just her looks he had fallen in love with. It was the way she stuck by him when he was in school, never faltering in her friendship for an instant, even at the hardest times. His friend had protected him from school bullies and stayed with him as his life grew weirder and weirder. She had always encouraged him, cheered him on and buoyed him up, as she did for all of her friends. That was the Tea he had loved.
As for what was missing in his life, he knew the answer to that too. All of his friends had found someone to care for intimately. That was why Bakura was happy, why Joey was happy, and why Tristan was happy. They had found their love, and that strengthened them and tempered them until they were so much more together than apart. It was this that Yugi now knew he missed. He'd never dated seriously before - he'd broken it off after a few weeks, not feeling the chemistry. He realized that this was usually due to unfavorable comparisons to Tea, whom he rationalized as the only girl he mostly understood, who embodied his ideal woman.
"Yugi?" The query was both aloud and in his head. He blinked and turned back to the table, to find Joey, Mai and Yami looking at him quizzically.
"Yes?"
"Are you okay?" Yami asked with concern.
Yugi rewarded him with a brilliant smile, allowing the lightness of his heart to leak a little through their link. "Yes, I am. Better than I have been in years."
"I just invited everyone over to our house," Yami acknowledged his hikari's emotion with a smile. "Is that good with you?"
/Even Yami Bakura?/
"Even Yami Bakura," Yami agreed out loud, drawing a surprised blink from the former tomb robber.
"Sure," Yugi said, feeling as if he was on top of the world. He pushed his chair away from the table and jumped to his feet. "Let's go!"
- mon petit chou is roughly translated as 'my little cabbage' in French. It's a term of endearment. Excuse my horrid grammar, it's been a few years since French class. Or, better yet, interpret it as Mai's horrible grammar since French isn't exactly one of her first languages, I don't think.
Well, how did I do? I have to admit; I like this chapter much more than chapter two. I think a lot of things turned out much better, such as the flow of it. Sorry it took so long to tackle, but I only recently found myself back on a Yu-Gi-Oh kick, and then this was just begging to be edited. Please clickety the review button and let me know how passionately you love this story!
PS. I, uh, may or may not be writing a sequel, and I may or may not be about, oh, 10 pages into that. Maybe. If you're very lucky, it may be about a certain Yami who hasn't quite found love yet, and the first of the adventures in Yugi has in dating land. Maybe. If you're extraordinarily lucky, and this YGO thing I'm on lasts more than a few weeks, the sequel may eventually see print.