Dissatisfaction Town

Stress

Yusei opened the creaky door to Kiryu's ranch, looking around the blackness of his lower floor. It was all one room, wood-panelled with sparse but comfortable furniture lying around. Yeah, it suited Kiryu. "Hey, I'm here!" He called, looking upstairs where more shadows reached from. He climbed up, calling Kiryu's name as he did and finding him in the large lounge/ bedroom sleeping at his desk, paperwork strewn around him. Yusei shook his head and picked up one sheet, one that was just sticking out under his elbow. He frowned when it read Town Tax Reimbursement Plan: Shindou Mount Conversion. Mount Conversion? Yusei wondered if that meant the mine drilled inside the town mountain, still functioning. "Hey, are you gonna wake up now?" He flicked Kiryu's cheek and the man woke up.

"Hm," he stretched his arms out. "Morning Yusei. What time is it?"

"It's 1320, you idiot," Yusei shook his head, taking the empty seat beside Kiryu. "What's with this file?" He asked, more casually than he meant to.

"Oh, that. Well, I'm trying to find suppliers - legal ones - for the substance in the mines. Hopefully it'll bring some jobs and industry to the town. But we need funding to... improve things in there," he explained awkwardly. He knew Yusei would understand, but one thing he wasn't used to was sharing random problems with another human being. That seemed too far, and he drew his knees to his chest in discomfort, and it gave him an idea to ponder. "Hey,"

"Yeah?" Yusei asked, a smile spreading on his face. Kiryu looked up to the mount on the walls before him, random fragments of paper stuck to a poster board. With a small tear he pulls off a picture of Team Satisfaction in this glory days, a grainy monochrome one.

"Remember when you used to wire up the TV to the Domino Mainline and we'd watch illegal Death Note?" He asked with a broadening grin. Yusei didn't miss the mischief flashing in his eyes.

"Yeah. Why?" He asked, guarded.

"Wanna watch legal Death Note and binge market fruit?"

"Fuck - how do you know me so well?" Yusei chuckled a little, taking Kiryu's laptop over to the couch and typing in the url while Kiryu ran downstairs to collect every morsel of sweet fruit in that house.

They watched from the beginning, because Death Note was always something to re-watch, and shared a large bowl of fruit between them. They flipped over Kiryu's couch, a blanket pulled over them. Despite being warm and humid during daylight, high winds made the town chilly at night. "So Yusei, what's the deal with you and Jack?" He asked eventually, predictive disappointment in his voice. "Are you a couple?"

Yusei frowned deeply, brow furrowed in worry. He was here to tell Kiryu, to be his supportive friend. But now he had to bring up Jack, and the past, and he wasn't even drunk! He stared at the man with the frosty hair whose eyes swam with sadness but retained their wonderful spark of psychosis that made Kiryu that little more exciting. Something that had always attracted Yusei. Now it just made him afraid and uncertain, weary of Kiryu's reaction. "Yeah, Kiryu. We are," he admitted with a heavy voice. The weight of his words seemed to pile onto his shoulders, not stopping for anything.

"Hah! I knew it, he'd make you his," Kiryu laughed, one that sounded happy but Yusei knew better. It was saturated with bitterness. "What, the King always gets what he wants?"

"He calls me his Stardust Knight," Yusei smiles, picturing Jack in his mind, hair dishevelled from morning wood, collarbones visible under loose bedclothes.

"Of course he does," Kiryu hissed. "Bastard always loved to be dramatic,"

It was times like this Kiryu reminded him of Jack - they had always had some unspoken rivalry over the competition of Yusei's heart. "What about you?" Yusei asked, trying to change the subject. "Any men in your life I should know about?"

"Like hell," Kiryu scoffed, fingers trembling on the armrest. His breathing was getting heavier - he was having withdrawals. "Who'd wanna date this train wreck?"

"Hm, what about Radley?" Yusei asked innocently. "The two of you seemed pretty close." At the bar.

"Nah. I mean he pursued me but I wasn't interested in sleeping with the guy," he head fell on Yusei's shoulder, curling up into his side. A nostalgic position, his hair falling into Yusei's front. "I'm tired,"

"No," Yusei sits up, pulling the blanket off the puppy-man cuddling up to him. "I'm only here until Sunday night. I want to help you as much as I can, and if I'm going to do that we need to start now,"

"So developing mental health begins with an all-nighter?" Kiryu asked sceptically.

"Yeah. Just trust me, okay?"

"Fine," Kiryu relented. "What do you want me to do?"