Chapter Text
We're only blood and sugar, right? - boys like girls
“Happy birthday!”
Yugi grinned at his friends sitting around him at the table of the restaurant.
It had been a really great year.
He had finally found a company he felt comfortable working in with his degree in game design and was already working on a new game that he’d created an outline for that was met with excitement.
His grandfather had finally hired Katsuya as full time help in the family game shop, so Yugi didn’t feel so guilty leaving the elderly man behind to pursue his own aspirations.
Grandpa was really proud of him too.
In addition to all of this, he’d rekindled his friendship with an old classmate and had actually hit it off well enough that when he’d asked Yugi if he’d like to go on a date with him, it hadn’t left him paralyzed with anxiety or anything.
Truthfully, dating Tomoya was no different than just being friends with him.
They still talked about games and comic books, movies and books they both had read due to their similar interests.
The only true difference was that sometimes they’d hold hands.
His friends and family loved him.
They all got along really well and everything was great and fine and—
So unlike what his first and longest relationship had been like.
It had been such a whirlwind of emotions all the time. Like a hurricane, it was unpredictable and chaotic.
Yugi had fallen in love nearly immediately and very, very hard.
And when it ended… when Yugi had been nearly forced to end it, it had left him as if his entire heart had been ripped painfully from his chest and thrown into the ocean.
Being around the safety and calmness of Tomoya, Yugi’s nervous system was still uncertain how to respond by having a person who didn’t make him want to pull his hair out on a daily basis.
A cold, delicate touch met the back of his hand, drawing him back to the present.
He blinked and found all of his friends staring at him expectantly from across the round table.
Yugi looked over to see Tomoya give him a small, shy smile as he slipped his hand away. “You okay?”
A tiny little cake with a single lit candle lay before him.
He’d forgotten to blow it out.
A too wide grin broke out over Yugi’s face. “I’m fine, sorry.”
He quickly blew out the candle and his friends clapped with cheers and excitement.
While they chatted and laughed and continued on, Yugi took a long drink from his beer.
He had almost let himself think about him again and that was never a good idea.
He stomped down his trail of thought and tried to focus on his life now. His life where everything made sense and it was safe and happy and everything was going right for once and—
“Yugi, don’t look,” Anzu spoke quickly from his side, putting a hand on his arm.
Yugi tensed out of confusion, setting his beer glass down. “Hm?”
Her crystal blue eyes were wide and her sweetheart face looked paler than before.
Like she’d seen a ghost.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” He heard Katsuya curse under his breath from across the table.
Yugi’s brows pulled together. “Who is—”
As soon as he lifted his gaze to look up, Anzu grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. “No, don’t.”
His cheeks squished between her palms. “I don’t understand.”
“What’s going on?” Tomoya’s kind voice came from beside him.
Anzu looked fearful. She visibly swallowed. “Yugi… it’s Atem. He’s here.”
Every tiny piece of his world shrunk down at the words. At the name.
He could barely hear his voice over the sudden blood rushing in his ears or how loud his heart began to pound.
Perhaps he had misheard her.
“Here?”
Anzu slowly released his face, but the deep concern remained on her face. “Yes. At the bar. Don’t look over, okay? That’s what he wants. And you don’t have to give him that power anymore.”
Power.
That’s what they’d always said.
Atem had power over him.
“I’m fine,” he lied to her, to himself. He offered her a smile. “Don’t worry. Let’s just go back to having a good time.”
Anzu held his gaze for a little longer, seeming to judge his sincerity, and then thankfully relaxed.
“Y-Yeah,” she agreed. “Let’s just get back to your birthday.”
Yugi nodded and was relieved when everyone began to slowly resume their conversations.
Though, the laughter was too forced.
“Yugi?”
He turned his head to see Tomoya’s chocolate eyes behind his round glasses. He was leaning closer in order to speak quietly.
“Yeah?”
“Who’s Atem?”
Yugi’s heart skipped hard at the name. The traitorous thing that it was. “I am sorry, Tomoya,” he apologized with a duck of his head. “I’m sure you are so confused. He’s uh… my ex boyfriend. We had a bad break up a couple of years ago and everyone gets worried about me. It’s fine.”
He shrugged for emphasis and gave him a smile, but Tomoya tilted his head a little, eyes shifting. “You mean… the man at the bar right now, staring at us like he may light the place on fire at any given moment is… your ex-boyfriend you’ve never mentioned?”
Yugi paled this time. “He is staring over here?”
Tomoya nodded. “He looks really angry. Is that why you broke up with him?”
Yugi exhaled a nervous laugh. A cold sweat broke over his skin.
“Somewhat. I don’t really like talking about it. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
Tomoya finally tore his gaze away and met Yugi’s. He relaxed into a soft smile that made him look rather handsome. His hand touched Yugi’s on the table.
“It’s okay,” he told Yugi honestly and sincerely. “That’s behind you now. You don’t have to tell me anything unless you want to.”
That should have made Yugi feel better and maybe a tiny part of him did, but at the moment he was using all of his willpower to not to look in the direction of the restaurant bar.
To distract himself, to force himself to remember that the only thing that mattered was Tomoya… and the life Yugi had created that year with him, he leaned forward and kissed Tomoya on the cheek.
The boy, who wasn’t overly comfortable with public displays of affection, immediately grew flustered and his pale, freckled cheeks transformed into a bright crimson red.
“Thank you,” he told his boyfriend. “You’re amazing.”
Tomoya met his gaze shyly and a tiny smile lifted his lips. “Y-You’re welcome.”
Slam!
Yugi’s whole body reacted to the loud sound, as did the whole restaurant, and his eyes lifted without his consent to see what had happened.
He froze.
A man was leaving the bar, like a transient storm, and although Yugi only saw the back of him, he knew exactly who it was.
Would recognize him anywhere.
Even after two years.
The hair on his arms rose and his adrenaline spiked.
“Good riddance,” Anzu muttered under her breath as the restaurant came back to life. “He hasn’t changed at all.”
“He’s lucky I don’t go beat his ass right now,” Katsuya grumbled.
“It wouldn’t accomplish anything,” Hiroto told him. “He’s insane. He’d just laugh and ask for more.”
“Don’t remind me,” Katsuya replied grumpily before looking over at Yugi.
But Yugi was still frozen from being struck by lightning. Still paralyzed and unable to remove his eyes from the doorway that Atem had disappeared through.
“Hey, Yugi,” Katsuya called and Yugi reluctantly dropped his gaze down to his friend. “Don’t let him mess with ya. He probably just doesn’t like seeing you moved on. Throwing a tantrum like always.”
Yugi swallowed hard and forced a smile on his face. “Yeah, yeah you’re right.”
The thing was… Yugi hadn’t planned to ever see Atem again.
After their nasty break up two years prior, the man supposedly went overseas never to be seen again.
Yugi had made his peace with that.
It was the only thing that had kept him from falling to his knees and begging for Atem to take him back, which wouldn’t have been a good thing at all.
The whole reason Yugi had broken up with him in the first place was because he couldn’t do it anymore.
He couldn’t keep getting caught up in Atem’s mood swings and toxic energy. His possessive behavior that kept Yugi feeling isolated from his friends and family.
But he did. He always did. And Yugi knew that and that was why he was relieved when Atem had decided to leave the country.
So why was Atem back now?
They finished up their meal and then departed for the doors.
“I’m gonna go to the restroom real fast,” Yugi excused himself. He looked at Tomoya. “You should probably catch the bus before it gets too late. See you tomorrow?”
His boyfriend smiled sweetly. “Of course. I can’t wait. Text me when you get home.”
Yugi said goodbye to his friends but was pulled into a tight hug from Anzu before she left.
“Don’t let that jerk get to you, Yugi,” she said against his ear.
Yugi embraced her back with a smile. “I won’t. I promise. It’s been two years, Anzu. I don’t even think about him anymore.”
Anzu squeezed him then drew back to look at him. “Good,” she smiled. “He doesn’t deserve anything from you.”
Yugi’s stomach twisted. “I know.”
Anzu sighed and adjusted her purse on her shoulder. “Alright. Well, you tell any of us if you need anything, okay?”
“I will,” Yugi said with an appreciative grin.
She told him happy birthday one more time and then left him there alone.
He took a deep breath and went off to the restroom to relieve himself before walking home. His apartment was just down the street, but the beer he’d drank had gone right through him.
He should have sensed a disturbance in the force when he left the restroom, but after two years of silence, he must have lost his touch.
“Happy birthday.”
Yugi jumped wildly out of his skin as he caught sight of Atem in all his glory, leaning against the wall near the bathroom door, arms crossed and his signature smirk upon his mouth.
He’d changed only subtly, Yugi realized while giving him a quick once over.
His messy dark hair was still streaked with dyed gold, his dark chestnut skin contrasted greatly with the white, tight fitting t-shirt he was wearing over his dark washed jeans and suede boots.
Gold jewelry decorated his ears, neck, and wrists, making him look far more attractive than Yugi wanted to admit.
And his eyes… his dark brown eyes that he knew in the right lighting could appear a carnation red, stared intently at him as if Yugi was the sole person in the establishment.
The hallway crackled with live wire energy that left Yugi fidgeting in his sneakers.
Yugi did his very best to keep his voice as flat and emotionless as possible.
“What are you doing here?”
Atem chuckled and the deep sound of it gave Yugi goosebumps.
“It’s your birthday,” Atem told him as if it were obvious. “Did you really think I’d forget?”
Irritation bristled at Yugi, but more so because despite all that time telling himself he was over Atem, with just one look at him it was so obvious by his reaction that he was not.
“You forgot the last two years,” he retorted anyway with a narrowing of his eyes. “Besides, we are broken up and you’re supposed to be overseas so—”
He broke off when Atem pushed off the wall. He didn’t approach him, but Yugi’s heart flipped anyway. He felt his presence like it was ten feet tall.
“I’ve been back for a couple of weeks,” he said casually, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I’ve been trying to find you. You moved out of Grandpa’s?”
Yugi crossed his arms over his chest. Over his heart. “That’s none of your business.”
Atem chuckled, undeterred. His eyes roamed down Yugi’s body like he was staring down his next meal. “You look well.”
Civil. He should be civil, right? After all, Atem hadn’t said anything out of line. He was actually being quite calm, all things considered.
“You do too,” Yugi allowed himself to say and meant it. “Are you back for good?”
Atem hummed and his eyes rolled to the ceiling as if he was thinking before dropping them back to Yugi. “That depends.”
“Depends on what?”
Atem stared at him then.
And Yugi heard the answer before the man even said a word.
Atem removed his hands from his pockets and took a step toward him. “You’re quite cozy with that kid with the glasses.”
There it was.
Yugi shrugged to feign nonchalance. “He’s my boyfriend.”
Atem laughed like Yugi’d said the most humorous joke in existence. It spread heat over Yugi’s face until he felt like he was nearly on fire.
“Him?” Atem clarified through his laughter. “Oh, baby he’s not your type.”
Yugi glowered incredulously. “I don’t think you get to say that,” he told him smartly. “In fact, I think I should be getting home now.”
Furious with Atem for his audacity, he attempted to stomp past him, never to look back again—when an arm shot out and stopped him.
Yugi flinched and snapped his head up to the man. His dark eyes peered deep and dangerously into his.
Yugi’s mouth went utterly dry at the realization of just how close they now were.
The last time they were this close, they had still been together.
Atem’s gaze dropped down to Yugi’s parted lips with interest and then slowly lifted them back to meet his.
Yugi’s stomach somersaulted. Oh god.
“What does he do for you?” Atem murmured and it took Yugi an embarrassingly long time to figure out what he’d ask, let alone who they were talking about.
“H-He’s nice,” Yugi stumbled to answer over his pounding heart.
He could smell him. That intoxicating cologne that only Atem could pull off. His heat radiated from his body through both of their clothing as if it could caress Yugi’s bare skin.
Atem leaned down, his eyes flickering down to his lips once more.
Yugi’s breath grew shallow.
“Nice? Is that it?”
The hand that had stopped him from leaving, tentatively slid up his arm.
The skin on skin contact made Yugi nearly collapse upon the ground.
“What else would I need?” Yugi asked, eyes betraying him and finding Atem’s soft, dusky lips.
Atem smiled like a cat that caught a canary.
The man turned to face him then, cradling Yugi’s smaller frame between his hands as if he were a sacred being.
For some reason, Yugi had no willpower to stop him even then, even if he had wanted to.
And he should have.
He should have pushed him away.
“I think you know the answer to that,” Atem purred, inching his way closer to Yugi’s mouth.
He promptly forgot what they were talking about.
The only thing that he could truly focus on was the dark gaze threatening to consume him.
Before Atem could kiss him, his lips trailed past his lips to move along the seam of his mouth, making Yugi’s eyes flutter shut.
His palm slid over the small of Yugi’s back and pulled him flush against him, as he spoke words upon his jawline.
“Do you remember, baby?” He asked Yugi roughly, voice dipping even deeper. “Do you remember how I could make you feel?”
Did he remember? He definitely remembered.
It haunted his every second of every day. Atem was a shadow in his peripheral vision every time he said he was fine and held Tomoya’s hand.
He was there in every corner of the apartment that he’d never even shared with Atem due to the future they could have had.
He was there in his dreams that left him disoriented when he woke to find himself alone.
He was always there.
For him to be there now, alive and flesh and bone, holding him in that way he always did. Looking at him as if he were the only living person in the entire world—it was a firm reminder that he had never forgotten.
But this was too much.
His life was different now. He was doing really great and had a sweet boyfriend that didn’t leave him screaming out in the rain at two in the morning because he wasn’t being listened to.
And that was the problem. Atem had never listened to him when it came to the important things. He just lived by his own rules and his own morals and didn’t care what anyone else said or did.
Holding his breath, Yugi used all of his strength to push at Atem’s chest.
Atem broke away from him in surprise and Yugi avoided his gaze.
Ignored the way his heart fluttered dangerously fast and how his cheeks flamed.
“It doesn’t matter,” Yugi told him, wincing at how breathless he sounded. He looked up at him. In his beautiful dark eyes that always drew him in the worst and best ways. “We are over now, Atem.”
Those gorgeous eyes hardened instantly and only grew stronger with every inch of distance Yugi made between them.
His mouth shut in a hard line and his breathing became visible under his shirt.
Yugi’s heart quickened, recognizing the man’s anger. “Look, we broke up, Atem. Two years ago. I have a great job. A great apartment. A great boyfriend—”
“Great?” was the only thing Atem latched onto.
Yugi’s stress signals went off and he knew he needed to leave before things escalated. “You left—”
Atem’s hands slammed on either side of Yugi’s head by the wall, face purpling with fury that left Yugi flinching. “Because you told me to!”
“You were gonna leave anyway, we both know that,” Yugi countered quickly, referring to his trip overseas. “I’m glad you’re okay and everything went well for you, but I have moved on.”
Atem’s hands curled into fists by Yugi’s face as he seethed.
“You haven’t,” he told him and Yugi faltered. “You haven’t, Yugi. I can see it in your eyes. I can smell it on you. You haven’t moved on. You miss me. You still want me. You still—” he leaned forward and Yugi cursed how he just stood there, pressed against the wall by his kryptonite and allowed the man to hover over his lips. “You still need me, baby.”
The words and the smell of his breath broke something in Yugi what was left of his resistance and in a flash of a second—he grabbed fistfuls of Atem’s shirt and collided his mouth against his in a fierce, incredibly stupid kiss.
Atem’s tongue was in his mouth immediately, teeth scraping along Yugi’s lips and devouring him like a starved man. Yugi clutched at him similarly, years of pain and suffering suffocating him just as Atem’s mouth attempted to.
They were still fighting, Yugi knew.
Even when they were kissing. Even when they were making love it had always been like fighting.
Nails dug deep in their skin, scraping along scalps and collarbones, their noses pressed harshly along each other as if they were trying to become one person.
But underneath everything, and this was why he was hung up on him despite his better judgment, Yugi had always known Atem to be a passionate man that gripped a little too tight and bit a little too hard.
He loved so fiercely and aggressively that it was borderline obsession.
And Yugi would never admit that he a deep, dark part of him liked it.
Atem finally tore from his mouth to kiss his way down his neck, allowing Yugi to inhale deeply and gasp greatly when he sucked hard upon the skin between throat and collarbone.
The little moan that broke through his lips made Atem grip his hair tightly and press hard against his body, groin pushing between Yugi’s trembling legs.
“You’re just as sweet as I remember,” Atem rasped, accompanied by the flat of his hot tongue licking a stripe up Yugi’s throat.
Yugi dug his nails into Atem’s shoulders and tilted his head back. “This is so wrong,” he had half a mind to say. “I shouldn’t—”
Atem cradled his face with his hands far more gently than anything he had done thus far.
Yugi’s lashes fluttered rapidly as he tried to look at his dark gaze through his heated lust and yearning.
“He may own your heart right now,” Atem told him, slipping his fingers in his hair to push the golden curls away from Yugi’s cheeks. “But you know and I both know that I will always possess your mind, body, and soul.”
And with that, he kissed him again, this time slower and more deeply that left Yugi weakened against the wall.
And he just didn’t care if he was sucked down Atem’s rabbit hole anymore.
He just wanted Atem to kiss him like this forever. If they kept kissing then they wouldn’t fight and if they didn’t fight, then everything would be fine and—
A thud down the hallway made Atem pull away and both men looked blearily in the direction to see a worker of the restaurant had dropped a box of napkins and was kneeling down to pick it all up.
Anxiety struck through Yugi’s heart at the realization.
Oh god, what was he doing?!
He pushed Atem violently away and startled the man. “I’m sorry, I can’t Atem. I am just—I’m sorry.”
He ran away from him before the man could snatch him back.
“Yugi, wait—”
But he ignored him and rushed out into the warm summer night’s air, running across the thankfully empty street to disappear down the sidewalks toward his apartment building there, hoping he wasn’t followed.
He didn’t stop running until he was inside his apartment and locked safely inside.
Only then did he collapse down to the ground and realize what he’d done.
And what it meant.
He threw his face in his hands and nearly screamed with frustration.
Once again he’d allowed Atem to capture him back into his chaotic orbit, just when he had finally reached a point where he thought he’d be okay.
He slid his hands down to touch his fingers to his lips that still tasted of dark energy.
Who was he kidding?
He’d never be okay.
Atem had made sure of that the day they’d met.