Chapter 315: Kikawayu, You're Such a Restless Sleeper
"I told you to lock the door. Didn't you hear me?"
Amano Rei had heard him just fine. He'd just assumed he'd misheard.
In all the years they'd grown up together, Kikawayu had never once spoken to him in a tone like that, this forceful.
Even back when Amano Rei used to pin him down as a kid and ride him like a horse, Kikawayu had only ever wailed and begged for mercy.
Looked like Shio had been right after all. Kikawayu's mood really was rotten tonight.
But even if his mood was bad, that still didn't mean he could just...
Before Amano Rei could even get a word of refusal out, Kikawayu shot up, closed the distance until their faces were nearly touching, and slid an arm right past Amano Rei's side in a classic kabedon lean, locking the door behind him without even looking.
Click!
The crisp little sound struck deep into Amano Rei's chest.
He'd already used the Millennium Eye's Thought Reading on Nanami Misaki today. But even without activating Thought Reading now, Amano Rei could easily guess just how indecent Kikawayu's thoughts were at this exact moment.
"Kikawayu, did you forget what I told you before?"
"I haven't forgotten. I remember every single word you've ever said to me, Rei."
"Then what's with the way you're acting right now?"
The last time Amano Rei had seen Kikawayu with his heterochromatic eyes lit up like this was back when Yubel had taken control of him inside the Chronicle.
How unhinged Kikawayu had been back then was something Amano Rei was probably never going to forget for the rest of his life.
"I want to sleep with you tonight. Just like when we were kids."
"Can you promise me it'll actually be like when we were kids?"
"I swear on my honor!" Kikawayu raised a hand in oath.
"Fine. Alright, then."
"Heehee~"
With Amano Rei's permission secured, Kikawayu dove onto the bed, wriggled over to claim half of it, and started slapping his hand rapidly against the empty half of the mattress.
"Come on, come on, get in bed, Rei!"
He'd said it would be just like when they were kids, but as far as Amano Rei was concerned, nothing about this was the same at all anymore.
In Amano Rei's eyes, Kikawayu in his beautiful girl form was, at some fundamental level, still a different thing from the good friend he'd spent eighteen years growing up beside, day and night.
Still, Amano Rei had a pretty good idea why Kikawayu was in such a bad mood tonight.
It really did trace back to how things had ended between the Emperor and Fiore, and to Saotome Rei's follow up line landing like a knife: even childhood friends might not end up together in the end.
("Love is what gets woven into everyday life, into every little moment across countless days and nights. That much I could never get wrong.")
("I love you, Rei.")
Back then, inside the mind room, Kikawayu's confession had shaken Amano Rei to his core.
Eighteen years of growing up together, close enough to share a single pair of underwear between them, and this whole time, this was how his best friend had actually seen him.
Amano Rei still wasn't ready to accept his best friend's twisted love. But he figured he could at least comfort a dejected Kikawayu tonight, call it repayment for everything his friend had done looking out for him all this time.
If you were good to him, he'd be good right back. That was just the kind of textbook good-guy personality Amano Rei had.
And if you told him you loved him, even if he couldn't return that love, he still didn't want to watch you get hurt over it.
Besides, no matter how you looked at it, Kikawayu was one of the most important people in his entire life.
"So, is this really how we used to sleep as kids?"
Feeling Kikawayu practically wrapped around him, Amano Rei couldn't recall this particular scene from any of his memories.
"It's normal you don't remember. When you were little, you'd be asleep the second your head hit the pillow, Rei. After that, I always ended up holding you while you slept."
"So you've been doing this since way back then."
"Heehee, I hid it pretty well, didn't I~"
It wasn't so much that he'd hidden it well as that Amano Rei had simply never thought about it that way to begin with.
Feeling Kikawayu's body heat and breath pressed close against him, Amano Rei realized there was no way he was falling asleep the second his head hit the pillow, not like he used to as a kid.
Kikawayu spoke up quietly. "Rei, do you think the two of us could actually make it to the end?"
So this really was what had been bothering him.
"First of all, Kikawayu, you need to get one thing straight. The two of us were never together to begin with. So how could we possibly make it to any kind of end?"
"That's really mean of you." Kikawayu pouted. "Is it that I'm just not attractive enough as a woman? Rei, am I not pretty?"
If the question was whether he was pretty, the answer was absolutely yes. Even among all the beautiful girls Amano Rei had ever met, Kikawayu was solidly top tier.
And that was just his looks under the male disguise. In female mode, with long hair and Big Thunder proportions, plus those occasional flashes of heterochromatic eyes, Kikawayu's attractiveness climbed a whole tier higher still.
On top of that, his best friend had an insanely high perfect-wife quotient too. Good at taking care of people, and could cook like a dream.
"Honestly, whoever got to marry someone like you would have to have earned it in a past life."
"Really? Then I'm having eight kids!"
"Isn't that jumping ahead just a little?"
When it came to female charm, his best friend didn't lose to anyone, full stop. The real problem was the "best friend" part.
"Kikawayu, can I ask you something important?"
"Hm?"
"Why do you disguise yourself as a boy?"
This was something Amano Rei had wanted to ask before, but he hadn't gotten the chance last time, and he hadn't found the right opening since.
More than once, Amano Rei had also wondered whether, if Kikawayu had shown up as a girl from the very beginning, he might have found it easier to accept that twisted love of hers.
Of course, you couldn't gain something without losing something else. If Kikawayu had started out as a girl, the relationship between them probably wouldn't have ended up this genuinely close in the first place.
Though apparently the genuine part had only ever gone one way.
"Oh, so this is what you wanted to know, Rei. Hmm, it's actually kind of hard to explain. But if you really want to know, in exchange, you'll answer a question of mine afterward."
"Deal."
"Alright. As for why I disguise myself as a boy... all I can tell you right now is that the moment I drop this disguise, I won't be able to stay inside Eden anymore."
"What do you mean by that?" Amano Rei nearly shot upright in alarm, but with Kikawayu wrapped around him, he barely managed to move at all.
"Exactly what it sounds like. If I weren't disguised, I'd probably already be dead."
"You can't stay in Eden? Why would Eva be targeting you?"
"It's not me Eva's targeting. It's Yubel."
"Yubel?"
"Yeah. Yubel is the spirit bound behind me. She's been with me since the day I was born."
"Yubel is your..."
Are you secretly Jaden Yuki or something?
The sheer explosiveness of that revelation left Amano Rei's head spinning.
He'd assumed that the Kikawayu he'd seen inside the Chronicle duel had been, like every other character in the GX storyline, someone whose own desires had let Yubel worm her way in and manipulate his mind.
But it turned out the relationship between Kikawayu and Yubel was far more complicated than Amano Rei had ever guessed.
Complicated enough that Amano Rei couldn't even make sense of it. Yubel's connection to Jaden Yuki was built up across two lifetimes' worth of overlapping fate. So why did Kikawayu have Yubel too?
What connection did Kikawayu have to Yubel? No, more realistically: did Kikawayu have some connection to Jaden Yuki himself? The same way Kaiba Seto was connected to Kaiba Chiaki?
"Wait, does that mean Yubel is here right now too?"
It wasn't that Amano Rei minded the idea of a card spirit watching them. If he minded that, he'd already have been thoroughly seen through by Eve and the others a long time ago.
"Why have I never once seen her, then." That was the part actually bothering Amano Rei.
If she was a card spirit, he should have been able to see her by now. Take Rin Seiya's Stardust Dragon spirit, for instance. He could see that one just fine.
"Yubel almost never comes out. She only shows herself when I'm alone, or in certain dangerous situations. And she doesn't want to appear in front of you, Rei. She told me that herself."
Was it just him, or did it kind of sound like Yubel actively disliked him?
There was simply too much to take in at once, and Amano Rei couldn't fully process it all right away.
"Guess it's my turn to ask now, Rei~"
Kikawayu pressed his lips close to Amano Rei's ear, his voice drifting in on a warm current of breath.
It looked like exactly the kind of thing you'd read as intimate, but the tone Kikawayu used to ask his question, his heterochromatic eyes flickering, was the exact same tone he'd used at the very start, when he'd first told Amano Rei to lock the door.
"Why is your room, and only your room, the one with a double bed?"
He asked it in that same cold, forceful tone, and it was a question that left Amano Rei too guilty to answer.
"Rei. Have you been cheating on me behind my back?"
After asking that, Kikawayu rested a pale hand flat against Amano Rei's chest, as if checking for any change in his heartbeat right then and there.
"Obviously because a double bed is more comfortable to sleep in." Amano Rei answered with a perfectly straight face. "A single bed is just enough to sleep on. A double bed, that's living! I work hard enough, can't I treat myself a little?"
"Huh?" Something shifted in Kikawayu's beautiful eyes, and his hand rubbed lightly against Amano Rei's chest again. "Your heartbeat really didn't speed up at all. I was sure you'd try to bluff your way through this."
"Kikawayu, what kind of person do you think I am?"
If his heart rate spiked every time he tried to bluff his way past someone, Amano Rei might as well have wasted the last eighteen years of his life.
Anyone who actually made a habit of lying to his best friend needed to be able to do it without so much as a blush or a skipped heartbeat.
"Fine. I guess I misjudged you." Kikawayu sulkily pulled his hand back. "You'd better not be lying to me, though. Anyway, let's just sleep~"
"You're really not going to do anything, huh." Honestly, Amano Rei had already braced himself. If Kikawayu had actually tried to push things, he'd more or less decided he wouldn't resist, that he'd just let it happen.
Given how bottled up Kikawayu clearly was, and considering he'd once said something as unhinged as "please, just let me have you once," if Amano Rei really gave her free rein, there wasn't much she wouldn't be capable of.
"I'm not doing anything. Are you disappointed, Rei? If you beg me nicely, I could help take care of you~"
"What are you even talking about?"
He wasn't nearly that pent up himself. If anything, after a full day of high intensity Riding Duels against actual gods, Amano Rei was exhausted.
The moment he'd lain down, Kikawayu's presence had left his nerves a little too wired for sleep.
But as he settled into it, gradually rediscovering that familiar feeling of sleeping side by side the way they had as kids, his body relaxed on its own, and all the exhaustion and drowsiness left over from his duel against gods came crashing over him like a tide.
"Let's sleep." Amano Rei shifted the leg Kikawayu had draped over him a little to one side.
"Mm. Good night, Rei~"
If you asked whether Kikawayu wanted to do something more, then yes, of course she did.
But she'd already been warned by Yubel, back after they'd returned from the Chronicle last time.
Right after she'd said the words "please, just let me have you once," Amano Rei had already been the first to slip back, as a spirit-behind-the-body, into Kikawayu's body back in Eden.
At the time, Amano Rei had noticed Kikawayu suddenly go completely still.
As it turned out, Kikawayu had been caught red-handed by Yubel inside the mind room.
Yubel: "You went way too far this time, Kikawayu. I can look the other way when you act out inside the Chronicle. But back here in Eden, that kind of thing is absolutely not happening."
Kikawayu: "It, it's really not okay?"
Yubel: "If you break the contract, even I won't be able to protect you. Don't throw away whatever future you and Amano Rei might still have, just because your desires got the better of you for one moment. I really hope you won't do something that stupid."
Kikawayu: "I understand. I'll hold out a while longer."
She'd already held out for eighteen years. What difference would a little more time make now.
Right now, in bed, Kikawayu watched Amano Rei's sleeping face in the dark.
Rei was still exactly the same as always. Say the word sleep, and he'd be out within thirty seconds, guaranteed. Apparently only people with genuinely simple, uncomplicated minds could manage that.
Just being able to stay by Rei's side was enough to make her happy, even if nothing else ever happened.
Thinking that, Kikawayu pulled Amano Rei a little closer still.
Feeling the warmth radiating off the boy in her arms, Kikawayu felt her own body starting to run a little hot too.
Holding back really was rough, no matter how you looked at it.
Kikawayu swallowed, glanced down at her own fingers, then took a long, deep breath of Amano Rei's scent.
...
What in the world was Kikawayu even doing over there?
Amano Rei liked to think of himself as a fairly deep sleeper, not the type to be easily disturbed by outside noise.
But tonight, his sleep kept getting interrupted, in fits and starts, purely because whatever was going on beside him was a little too noisy to ignore.
Kikawayu kept squirming restlessly on the bed, letting out the occasional soft, wordless sound.
Had his best friend always slept this badly?
Drifting in and out of a hazy, broken sleep, Amano Rei felt like he'd had a strange dream sometime in the back half of the night.
He dreamed of water pouring like a waterfall, of the clear, rushing sound of it flowing.
By the time the morning alarm went off, Amano Rei opened a pair of eyes that clearly hadn't gotten enough sleep, and looked over to find Kikawayu sprawled out shamelessly beside him, legs spread wide, scratching at his own stomach, sleeping without a single care in the world, which for some inexplicable reason filled Amano Rei with a flash of irritation.
Part of him really wanted to kick her right off the bed.
"Time to get up, Kikawayu!"
In the end Amano Rei couldn't quite bring himself to do it. He just got dressed, then nudged his foot gently against Kikawayu's dumbstruck, drooling sleeping face.
Back when you were a Fusion Academy student, sure, sleep in all you want. But you're at Synchro Academy now, so get up and do your morning laps like everyone else.
"Five more minutes. I'll get up in five more minutes."
"If you're late, I'm not waiting around for you today."
"It's fine, I'll make it."
Once he was dressed, Amano Rei left the room and found that Finesse, the young lady of Fusion Academy, was also up unusually early today.
Finesse, sipping coffee in the first floor living room, was clearly just as unused to early mornings, every bit as worn out and sleep deprived as Amano Rei himself.
"Why not sleep in a bit more, my lady?"
"Haah~" Finesse let out a huge yawn. "There's an academy event at Fusion this week, so everyone has to get to school early. I never realized how rough getting up early actually is. I don't know how you and Kikawayu manage to keep it up every single day."
At the mention of Kikawayu, Finesse's silver-gray eyes swept once around the villa's rooms.
"Where's Kikawayu, anyway? Shouldn't he be leaving with you around now?"
"Probably just being lazy in bed."
"Ohh~ that does sound about right for him."
Finesse took a sip of her coffee, glancing up from the living room toward the rooms upstairs, and spotted the door to what should have been Amano Rei's empty room swinging open.
Kikawayu came bolting out of the room in a rush, his clothes not even properly on, one hand still hiking up his waistband.
The dark brown liquid in Finesse's cup slowly trickled down from the corner of her mouth as she went from shock straight to stone still.
Then, trembling, Finesse turned her unfocused, blank stare toward Amano Rei. "Did you two sleep together last night?"
"I swear on my honor, it was purely just two best friends sleeping." Amano Rei raised a hand, mimicking Kikawayu's oath from the night before.
"Purely just two best friends sleeping, that's plenty weird on its own..." Finesse felt like she'd just had a whole new world cracked open in front of her.
Amano Rei didn't get the chance to ask Finesse what the Fusion Academy event this week even was before he was riding his D-Wheel with Kikawayu on the back, arriving at the academy right on the razor's edge of being late.
Just another busy Monday. By noon, Amano Rei had already been dragged by Kaiba Chiaki into a private booth at the virtual network login point.
"Do we really need to rush like this, Chiaki-senpai?"
"First let's check what this week's Chronicle is. I keep getting the feeling that whatever Eva's been randomly assigning you lately isn't entirely random at all. There's some other meaning behind it."
Funny enough, Amano Rei had felt exactly the same way.
Going strictly by the Yu-Gi-Oh anime's own timeline, the Chronicles clearly jumped around between completely different eras. And yet Amano Rei couldn't shake the sense that the story was somehow progressing in a straight line anyway.
The last time a Chronicle had wrapped up, Eva had flagged that the entire Duel Monsters storyline had reached its conclusion.
Which meant all that was left now was the GX and 5D's storylines?
Sure enough, once the random cursor started flickering, the title that came up landed squarely back on the GX timeline.
[GX Chronicle: Duel Academy's Campus Queen Election Duel]
[Chronicle Difficulty Rating: E]
[Cards obtainable: Maiden in Love, Machine Angel Ritual]
The instant she saw what the Chronicle displayed, Kaiba Chiaki's eyes, bright with excitement just a second earlier, went dull and flat.
"I'm heading back." Kaiba Chiaki turned and pushed open the booth's door.
"What, Chiaki-senpai, not joining me this time?"
"I'm not wasting my precious time on some boring Chronicle like this."
Boring, huh. Based on what he already knew, a difficulty E Chronicle probably wouldn't even have a duel in it at all. He'd just walk through some story text and come out the other side with a couple of cards.
After getting used to Eva randomly handing him one high difficulty SS rank Chronicle after another, suddenly getting bumped down to E rank left Amano Rei more than a little surprised.
Was Eva looking out for him after everything he'd been through lately, giving him a chance to slack off and relax for once?
Whatever. Might as well go in and take a look alone.
Kaiba Chiaki could turn her nose up at a boring Chronicle and walk away, but Amano Rei didn't have that luxury. If he didn't clear this Chronicle, the next one wouldn't refresh.
Amano Rei pressed the Depart button.
The next instant, Amano Rei was pulled into the story, and a flood of background memories poured into his mind.
[Duel Academy's annual campus election tournament, unsurprisingly, saw Alexis Rhodes advance to the finals.]
[But Alexis Rhodes's opponent in the campus queen finals turned out, unexpectedly, to be freshman Saotome Rei.]
[The girls, fighting over love itself, threw themselves into a duel that staked their very dignity!]
[Whoever won would get to date Amano Rei.]
[But you had apparently said women were just a nuisance, and that they shouldn't get in the way of your draw speed.]
Was he seriously a Sigma male in this GX Academy version of himself?
No wonder this world's version of Saotome Rei kept saying he'd always been so aloof and dismissive of her at the Academy.
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