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They step out of the cinema and into the humid-heat of a Domino summer, but Yuugi still feels cold. He pulls his jacket back on, drawing it close around his shoulders, and behind him Ryou chuckles. It sounds so much like the Spirit of the Ring that Yuugi has to turn and check – but no, the Ring Spirit is still gone, and it’s just Ryou watching him with a soft smile and twinkling eyes.
He’s so pretty, Yuugi thinks, trying not to blush. It’s completely at odds with the rest of his likes and hobbies.
“We could have seen something else,” Ryou says.
“But you wanted to see that one,” Yuugi argues, “and going to the movies isn’t as fun on your own.”
Ryou shrugs, taking a sip of his leftover soda. “Thank you for braving it with me, then,” he says.
Yuugi grimaces a little, but he falls into step by Ryou’s side as they start to walk. Cicadas are screaming in the trees lining the street, and after the air-conditioned cool of the cinema, the heat should feel like it’s too much. Instead, it feels a little heady. Being here, with Ryou; a comfortable peace settling between them.
Ryou could have drifted away after everything, and Yuugi doesn’t think that anyone would have blamed him. But he didn’t. He stayed, and the longer he’d stayed, the more Yuugi had come to depend on his presence. On his quiet resilience and his dark humour, and those unfairly pretty smiles. He knows that his other friends all miss Atem too, but Ryou is the only one who can even come close to understanding what it felt like to share his body and soul with another version of himself – well, him and Marik, but Marik is in Egypt and is too busy rebuilding his reputation with his clan and his relationships with his siblings, besides.
It's been months now, since Yuugi realised that his dependence on Ryou’s support had turned into a crush of epic proportions. He hasn’t said anything. He refuses to put their friendship at risk like that, but he’s found himself becoming braver regardless. Brave enough to voluntarily go and see a horror film with him.
(He’d wonder more about how Ryou could laugh his way through blood and gore like that, if he hadn’t met the Spirit of the Ring or seen Ryou’s hugely disturbing model collection.)
“We can see an action movie next time,” Ryou offers.
“You hate them, though,” Yuugi protests, although he’s a little pleased that Ryou wants there to be a next time.
“You just spent an hour and a half watching the inside of your coat,” Ryou replies. “It won’t hurt me to return the favour. Besides – “
“Besides what?” Yuugi looks over at him, taking in the way that Ryou’s ears have turned red and his gaze his lowered.
“I like spending time with you,” Ryou says after a moment.
Yuugi grins at him, desperately hoping that his face doesn’t reveal how much his heart is fluttering in his chest. He can blame the blush on the heat, he hopes.
They drift together through the summer streets, letting their feet guide them. The sun is setting red and gold between the skyscrapers when Ryou reaches out, curling his fingers around Yuugi’s wrist to tug him to a halt. Yuugi looks up at him in confusion and feels his breath hitch.
The dying sun has turned Ryou’s hair the colour of gold. It catches in his long, white lashes and brings out the reddish flecks that still linger in his eyes. He doesn’t quite seem real, but the hold he has on Yuugi’s wrist is firm and grounding.
Yuugi swallows. He waits for Ryou to speak and the moment stretches between them as soft and warm as honey.
“Do you want something to eat?” Ryou asks.
They’re standing next to a diner. It’s not a shiny big-name place, like Burger World; it’s a dive. It looks like one of the grimy izakayas that his Grandpa likes to go to had a baby with an American roadside place that feature in TV shows. It looks like something that wouldn’t look out of place in the early scenes of a horror movie – Yuugi privately resolves to leave as soon as a waitress starts acting sinisterly, even as he nods.
He is hungry. He spilled most of his popcorn at the cinema when the first jump-scare hit.
He lets Ryou guide him in through the door. Ryou is still holding his wrist, and Yuugi doesn’t pull away. He’d never dream of pulling away; he just wishes Ryou was holding his hand instead.
He’s got beautiful fingers. They’re long and slender and covered in faint scars and strange calluses. There’s a circular scar on the back of his hand from when he’d tried to save them from the Ring Spirit during their Monster World game. Yuugi had only had to wrestle control from Atem a couple of times during their time together, but Atem never gave Yuugi any scars – not any visible ones. His grief feels enough like one, at times – while Ryou bears the marks of the Ring Spirit on his skin.
They end up seated in a booth with a cracked table and leather seats that are comfy, but that have seen better days. There are pictures on the walls, of celebrities and anime characters, and faint, indiscernible music is drifting through speakers somewhere towards the back. The laminated menu sticks to the table when Yuugi picks it up, but Ryou promises him in a soft voice that the hamburger steak is great and Yuugi believes him.
It's hard not to believe Ryou when he’s still holding Yuugi’s wrist across the cracked, sticky table. He could have told Yuugi that Kaiba had proposed to Jounouchi and he would have believed him – hamburger steak feels like less of a catastrophe in the making.
But still, Ryou doesn’t let him go. Not even when the (not very sinister) waitress comes to take their order. He doesn’t even let go when the food arrives, and Yuugi looks down at a surprisingly decent-looking hamburger steak and makes up his mind.
He pulls his hand back, just enough that he can tangle their fingers together instead.
He can feel his heart like a lump in his throat, but Ryou looks across the table at him and smiles that soft, breathtaking smile that Yuugi just adores, and –
And something right slots into place, and Yuugi feels like he can breathe again.