A Means of Communication

Chapter 16: Smoke Signals

"Sit, sit, sit!" Jounouchi urged, ushering Honda and Anzu to Yugi's couch. The blonde was jumping around the room in an ecstatic frenzy. Yugi stood back against the wall as Jounouchi took both Anzu's suspicious looks and Honda's blank stare.

This was it. This was the day when Yugi would tell them the real identity of his boyfriend. How would his friends react? Probably about the same as Jounouchi had. Scream at the top of their lungs.

Yugi sighed. He would have liked to have waited longer, actually he would have liked to have never told them at all, but now that Jounouchi had found out he was going around winking at people whenever Yugi got close. Now that Jounouchi knew the only thing stopping him from blurting out Yugi's secret was the fact that he got to break it to them today and act like he had known since the beginning, which he hadn't.

"God, what's the big deal?" Honda questioned tiredly.

Jounouchi rushed to Yugi's side, his knowledgeable grin wider than its natural measurements. "Can I tell them now?" he asked. "Please, please..."

"Wait," Yugi insisted, nervously peeking out the window every two seconds. "I want Ryou to get here first."

Honda's head jerked upwards, startled. "Ryou's coming?"

"So he knows this big secret too?" Anzu asked skeptically.

Jounouchi rubbed his hands together dubiously. "Maaaaaaaaaybe."

Anzu sighed, "It's probably nothing more exciting than Jounouchi dying his hair again," Anzu guessed to Honda and Jounouchi giggled with childish delight.

"Right," Honda gulped and began to gobble down handful of chips at a time. Yugi had noticed that his brunet friend had been acting very strange recently, especially around Ryou. Yugi hoped nothing drastic was going to happen today.

Finally one white haired head bobbed in through Yugi's front door.

"He's here! He's here!" Jounouchi announced, feet jumping a little again. Honda gobbled down more chips and Yugi's nerves redoubled so that he had to clench his hands together to keep himself still. Anzu, amid the nerves and insanity, sat with a very confused and questionable expression.

The second Ryou entered the room, Jounouchi dragged the poor kid over and stuck him on the end of the couch, next to Honda. The brunet choked and gagged on the half chewed potato chip mass in his mouth.

Ryou smiled awkwardly at Yugi. "Sorry, I came as soon as I could. My boss was lecturing me again," Ryou explained.

"That's fine, don't worry about it," Yugi reassured.

'I have all the worry this room can stand,' Yugi moaned to himself as Jounouchi dragged him to the center of the room.

Honda, coughing to clear his throat, chugged his bottle of soda in desperation and leaned significantly toward Anzu, who was on his other side on the couch.

"So what's going on?" Anzu asked persistently, pushing Honda's leaning body away.

"Ok, ok, so Yugi," Jounouchi brought his nervous friend forward to the center of the room, "Has a very, very important announcement!"

Yugi swallowed and then swallowed again, Anzu's and Honda's curious stares looking up at him. "Yeah... so, as you all know, about, ah, I guess, four and a half months ago I met this guy online," Yugi began.

"Yami," Jounouchi contributed helpfully, with another sly wink.

"What's with that wink?" Anzu questioned the blonde.

"Let Yugi tell the story," Ryou suggested. Yugi sighed. This was why he had wanted Ryou here, to bring some rationality into this chaos.

Yugi breathed and started again. "Yeah... well, when I actually met him, three months after that..."