Chapter Text
Jounouchi was raring to go. It didn’t matter that the sun was barely peaking over the horizon, or that the snow was so thick on the ground that it made riding his motorcycle pretty much impossible. He trudged through the snow, a goofy grin on his face as he turned the corner, bringing the Game Shop into view. It had been six days since he had last seen Atem and Yoi in person. Six! This was his shot at really spending some one-on-one time with his tiny best buddy.
It didn’t matter what his name was. Heba, Yuugi, Yoi… None of that mattered. All that mattered was that they had always been best friends. Reincarnation hadn’t changed that, so why would a little mindwipe or a wider age-gap?
He snuck into the house like a thief, silent and with purpose. Leaving his shoes at the front door, he made his way to the kitchen to whip up Yuugi’s favorite western-style breakfast: pancakes. Half an hour later, the batter was done and resting, leaving him to prepare the rest of the ingredients before he could wake them.
When he had finished cutting the fruit and set it aside, he uncovered the bowl of batter and mixed it some more with the ladle, checking the thickness and turning down the heat of the stovetop. He was just about to pour a nice ladleful of batter into the frying pan when he spied a flurry of black and shimmering golden dashing for him out of the corner of his eyes. If it hadn’t been for that slight tell, he, along with the bowl of pancake batter he was holding, would have ended up on the floor.
Luckily for Jounouchi, he had had just enough time to sloppily throw the bowl and ladle onto the counter, its contents sloshing dangerously close to the edge, before feeling an unbearably tight squeeze around his torso. He leaned down and squeezed back, reveling in the warmth of the hug that had been offered to him. He and Yuugi had always been close, but rare were the hugs that either of them gave or received. Jounouchi chalked that up to how his father had ingrained in him the need to be ‘manly’ at all times. What a fat load of bull that had ended up being. It was only now that he had regained his memories of his past life that he could really appreciate how twisted his father’s alcoholism was.
“Good morning lil’ buddy!” he laughed as he watched Yoi bury his face deeper into the soft cotton of his t-shirt.
“Good morning Jou-nii!!!” Yoi chirped, pulling away and quickly turning to face the stove. “What’re you making?”
“Your— I mean, Yuugi’s favorite American-style breakfast.” Jounouchi mentally slapped himself for almost revealing the crux of the magic spell. It was so difficult for him not to think of Yoi as just a tiny version of Yuugi, especially since the child was literally using his friend’s body! “You’re going to need a ton of energy to do what we’ve got planned for the day,” he quickly continued, hoping that the now seven-year-old was not as perceptive as his missing father.
Yoi simply turned back to face his much older friend and cocked his head to the side in thought. Jounouchi held his breath for a brief moment before shaking out his nerves and teaching Yoi how to make pancakes. There hadn’t been even a speck of violet in Yoi’s eyes. What Mokuba had told him over the phone the night before still stood. Yoi had been successfully convinced that Yuugi was a separate person altogether, and talking about him didn’t seem to affect the child in the slightest, other than to put the unavailable parent on a lofty pedestal.
Atem jumped down from the stairs two at a time, feeling a bit more emotionally refreshed after having spent the majority of the previous afternoon arguing with Seto. Now that they both had all of their memories and their relationship wasn’t just boiled down to being mere gaming rivals, Atem was able to be more forthcoming and honest with his emotions. Without Yuugi there to bounce his thoughts back to, Seto was the next best person, and he greatly appreciated his cousin’s fierce, unscrupulous nature. Whatever Seto had to say, he said it without any flash or pomp. His scathing honesty was honestly what was helping keep Atem from falling apart without Yuugi by his side.
Breakfast went better than usual, partially because Yoi wasn’t required to use chopsticks in order to eat. A knife and fork were better suited to eating an American-style meal, and Atem couldn’t help but laugh alongside Jounouchi as the seven year old practically inhaled his food like a Marshmallon would. Cleaning up and getting ready for the day went much quicker also, and Atem was left wondering if that was because of Jounouchi’s boundless energy.
Once all three of them were ready to go, Jounouchi sat on the couch with a blank paper lying on the coffee table, and drew up what he called a ‘battle plan’ to make the idea of cleaning the entire house in a day more fun for Yoi. With it being New Year’s Eve, and with Grandpa out of the house on a trip with Yuugi’s parents, it had been hard for Atem to keep the house clean all by himself, let alone attempt to complete the deep clean that was a yearly ritual for a typical Japanese household. Jounouchi knew that Yuugi had intended to teach him how to do it without too much hassle, but with him out of the picture, Katsuya knew that he had to take charge or else it would never get done. There was no way that he was going to let his best friends get in trouble with their old man for something as silly as cleaning the house!
With the battle plan all drawn up, Atem took to dusting everything in the house while Jounouchi and Yoi worked on cleaning the bathroom together. At the beginning there was more water play than actual cleaning, but once the two of them were thoroughly soaked, they got to work. After a quick change of clothes, the kitchen was next, and Atem helped them move the appliances out from against the wall so that even that part of the floor could be cleaned. When it came time to tackle scrubbing down the inside of the oven, Atem removed the metal shelves and Yoi clambered in, hysterical laughter echoing out from inside each and every time that Jounouchi attempted to close the oven door as he and Atem painstakingly scrubbed the countertops and cupboard shelves. From there Jounouchi and Yoi worked on organizing and clearing up the livingroom and bedrooms while Atem vacuumed. They took a quick lunch break, then the three of them tackled waxing the floors and putting on any laundry that needed doing. With all of that work done, they collapsed on the couch in a heap of aching and sore limbs, their muscles pulsating painfully from the frantic overexersion that had been required to deep clean the entire house in one day.
“In all of my time with Yuugi, never did the house get clean this quickly,” Atem sighed, his head perfectly cushioned between Jounouchi’s belly and a stack of pillows that the three of them had dragged out of the closet to shake and fluff. “Even with three people, him, Grandpa, and Mama, they normally spent two or three days cleaning…”
Jounouchi snickered with the knowledge of why they had taken their time. Atem was going to feel horrendously sore for the next few days. He, however, had been working out rather regularly, and so this much exertion wasn’t going to leave him in too much pain. The thought of how Yoi’s body would hold up after such a physically straining day had occurred to him, but he tried not to worry too much about it. After all, if the boy was literally growing at the rate of one year per day, he should technically be able to sleep off the soreness and be good to go the next morning.
It wasn’t until the two young adults heard Yoi’s gentle snoring that they realized how late it was. The sun had already set and the day was already done. Somehow they had managed to eat two meals in the day, but had skipped the third in their zeal to wax the floors as perfectly as possible.
Atem heaved his stone-heavy body up and off of the couch, bent down, picked Yoi up off of Jounouchi, and brought him upstairs. After such a hard day’s work, it was time for bed.
As he laid the sleeping boy down and tucked him into bed, Atem prayed to all of the gods that could hear him for the rest of Yoi’s days to be as filled with laughter and fun as this one.