Beastly King (Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic Puzzleshipping/Blindshipping)

Autumn and Winter (5)

Here comes the angst. I own nothing :)

We'd been there a week when we found the sled. It was Yuugi who found it early one morning, high on a closet shelf, and gave a shriek that brought all of us out of our rooms to see what animal had attacked him. Instead, we found him pointing.
"Look!"
I looked. "It's a sled."
"I know. I've never had a sled! I've only read about them."
Then he jumped up and down until I pulled it off the shelf for him being slightly taller then him in this form. We both looked at it. It was a big sled, light, polished wood with barely used metal runners and the words flexible flyer painted on it.
"Flexible Flyer. It must really be like flying to race down a hill like that!"
I smiled. We'd made an army of snowmen ("Snow people," Yuugi said) in the past days, and just the day before, I'd woken early to clear a section of pond for skating. Yuugi had come down, hours later, to find me still at it with my shovel. Pond clearing was hard work. But it was worth it when he exclaimed,

"Skating on a pond! I feel like Jo March!" and I'd known exactly what he meant, because she'd forced me to read Little Women weeks earlier, even though it was a girl's book.
Now I stared at the sled, remembering. Aknamkanon had bought it when I was little, five or maybe six. It was a big sled, the kind that could take more than one person on it. I'd stood at the top of a seemingly endless hill, afraid to go down on my own. It was a weekend, so some other boys were there doing it, but they were older than I was. I saw another father and son. The father positioned himself on the sled, then let his son sit in front of him and wrapped his arms around him.
"Can you go with me?" I'd asked.
"Atem, it's no big deal. Those other boys are doing it."
"They're big boys." I wondered why he'd brought me if he didn't want to sled.
"And you're better, stronger. You can do anything they can do." He started to put me on the sled, and I began to cry. The other kids were staring. Tou-san said it was because I was being such a baby, but I knew even then that it was out of pity, and I refused to go alone. Finally, Tou-san offered one of the older boys five dollars to go with me. After the first time, I was fine. But I hadn't been on a sled in years.

Now I patted it. "Get dressed. We'll go right now."
"Will you show me how?"
"Of course. Nothing could make me happier." Nothing could make me happier. Since I'd been with him, I noticed I'd started to talk differently, pretentious and prettified, like the characters in the books he loved, or like sensei. Yet it was true! Nothing could make me happier than the idea of standing with Yuugi at the top of a snow-covered hill, helping him onto the sled and maybe—if he let me—going with him.

He was wearing his black chenille robe, and he leaned to polish the sled's runner with the belt.
"Come on," I said.
An hour later, we were at the top of that same hill where I'd gone with my tou-san. I showed him how to lie, face first on the sled. "This is the most fun way."
"But scary."
"Do you want me to go with you?"
I held my breath for his response. If he said yes, if I went with him, he would have to let me put my arms around him. There was no other way.
"Hai." His breath hit the air in a puff of smoke. "Please."
I breathed. "Okay." I pushed the sled to the last flat place before the hill began to slope downward, then sat on it. I motioned for him to sit in front of me. I wrapped my arms around his stomach and waited to see if he would scream. But he didn't. Instead, he snuggled more tightly against me, and in that moment, I felt like I could almost kiss him, like he would almost let me.
Instead, I said, "You're in front, so you navigate." With my nose, I felt the softness of his hair, smelled the shampoo he used, and his colon. Through his jacket, I could feel his heartbeat. It made me happy to know he was alive, was real, was there.
"Ready?" I said.
His heart beat faster. "Hai."
I gave the ground a kick and held him tight as we coasted down the hill, giggling like crazy.

That night, I built a fire, one of the many things I'd learned to do since becoming a beast. I had chosen soft pinewood for kindling and cut it into small strips. These I placed on some sheets of newspaper, and I put a hard log on top of those. I lit a match to the paper and watched as it all caught fire. I stood a moment, then took a seat beside Yuugi on the sofa. A day before, I might have taken a separate chair.
But now I'd had my arms around him. Still, I sat about a foot away from him and waited to see if he'd complain.
"It's beautiful," he said. ''A winter snow and a blazing fire. I never had a real fire in a fireplace before I met you."
"Especially for you, milord."
He smiled. "Where are Ryou-senpai and Mai-senpai?"
"They were tired, so they went to bed."