Hey guess what I didn't forget about this little thing. A couple of people are interested in seeing where this goes, and since I didn't plan it being much more than a oneshot, I guess I am too. Expect sporadic updates, more in line with TWEYHO than the 'big three'.

Unbeta'd.

Waking up at the force of his own sneezing was something Yugi had long gotten used to in the dry winter air, but that didn't make it any less unpleasant of a jolt.

He was alone again, the stranger nowhere to be seen. His clothes were gone from their branch, but the pelt remained wrapped around Yugi. There was still warmth trapped under it, more than Yugi could've done by himself, so the stranger couldn't have been gone too long. Perhaps the stranger had gone hunting for breakfast.

The morning sun broke low through the trees, the sky clear of clouds and pink as rock jasmine. As pink as Yugi's entire body seemed to feel the moment he realized he'd spent an entire night, completely naked, pressed up to some man who's name he didn't even know.

It faded when some snow fell from a branch, disturbed by some of the little birds hopping around. For a moment, he thought one of the other villagers might have found them. A search party, or maybe just his mother with her gun in one hand and keeping Grandpa from slipping into despair with the other.

God, the others must be worried about him too. Well, maybe just 'other'. Anzu always looked out for him, not letting the bigger villagers their age pick on him, but they weren't especially close beyond that even though they were neighbors. She wouldn't be as worried as his mother and grandmother at any rate. He was supposed to have returned before sundown and while it was common for the more experienced to lose track of time out in the wilderness, it never boded well for anyone who'd never really ventured past the boundaries of their village.

He looked around for his clothes, and found them folded in what could only be described as an attempt at a neat pile by his head. It was still leagues better than anything Yugi had ever managed to do with his own clothes back home. He finished tying his boots and hoisted the pelt over his shoulders to hang it over a branch he had a chance of reaching. Twigs, dirt and stones marred the fur, so as he brushed those out with his fingers the best he could, he glanced around the camp.

It was almost entirely barren, besides a map pinned to a tree stump with a few stones at each corner, not made of paper but rather branded leather. It was worn, sun-bleached and flaking in places, but even from this distance Yugi could unmistakably make out the ridges of the mountains around them, along with the outline of an immense lake not too far from Yugi's village.

It'd been called the Drowned Man's Lake as far back as his grandfather's books and folklore could say, though nobody in living memory had proved the ominous name right. Considering the lord of what seemed like the entire mountain range resided within a grand manor alongside it, he hoped that would be the case for a long time - if he remembered correctly, the man apparently had two children and it would be a tragedy if either of them were hurt.

(Even if the lord was an awful, horrible man who openly sneered at their village, and Yugi had never seen either one of the supposed sons.)

Yugi had always wondered, on the days where the fog rolled in and the other side vanished from existence, if that was what the ocean looked like. Maybe the stranger could tell him. Yugi had seen clothes like the ones he owned only in the summer months, when their home was more accessible to the lands below. The pass his village was built around was the only safe way through for miles around, especially in winter.

Snow crunching and the undergrowth being shoved aside shattered the peace of the clearing, and Yugi quickly hung the pelt behind him as he reached into... an empty sheath. Fantastic. His dagger must've fallen out in the river, he realized. His shoulders slumped. It hadn't been an especially important dagger, a standard one owned by many and surely rusted from disuse, but it was the first weapon he'd ever held, the first time that he was considered an equal to his peers. And he'd lost it before it had cut anything more destructive than a twig.

In an odd way though, he was glad at the same time - he'd never been able to bring himself to slaughter something as simple as a chicken or even a fish, let alone something as large as a wolf. He couldn't picture himself driving it into the beast's heart, at any rate.

The stranger emerged, morning powder falling from the trees and dusting his shoulders, and Yugi relaxed. He didn't seem to notice Yugi's wary stance, his melancholy, or Yugi himself altogether, as he lay out the fruits of a dawn forage out on the snow atop the leather strip he'd bound them in. A hare that had been skinned already, pine cones still filled with seeds, and some small birds who must have frozen over night. He grabbed one of the cones and got to work picking the seeds out, using...

"Is that my dagger?"

The stranger jumped at Yugi's voice, the pine cone tumbling back into the snow along with the dagger. Yugi yelled at himself internally; he could've cut his finger off because of him!

The stranger drew in on himself, hunching his shoulders like he expected Yugi to yell at him. "Yeah, sorry. Shouldn't have took it without askin' but, uh, the blade on mine snapped. D'you mind?"

"No, it's fine. Just be careful, it's a little dull."

The stranger nodded, his shaggy fringe falling over slightly confused eyes, and Yugi couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight even as the stranger pushed it back and got back to work, chatting as he got back to stripping the cone of all its seeds.

"You're, uh. You're a local, right?" he said suddenly.

"Yeah, why?"

"Y'see that map on the stump? Bought it from someone off the coast, but, uh... Meetin' you makes me think it's off somehow. Mind takin' a look?"

On closer inspection, he was proven right. Aside from the lake and the mountain range, there was no sign of Yugi's village, or that there was even a path through the mountains to begin with.

"No offense, but I think you got ripped off. This thing is either a fake or years out of date, or both. I mean, yeah my village is small, but it's the only one around for miles. It should be about... there. Mind if I mark it?"

The stranger sat quiet for a moment, his face alarmingly blank. He inhaled deeply, then let out a sigh that sounded like it should've come out of someone far older, more familiar with the world's troubles.

He didn't offer Yugi any clues as to how irritating it must have been to come so far on a bad map, instead standing and stretching, his back clicking. There was something else in his eyes though, some awful exhaustion, that just couldn't have been caused by that awkward proximity to Yugi alone. No wonder, if he'd been following a map that told him there was nothing but wilderness. He wouldn't know all the shortcuts like the other villagers did, or even just the passable routes. Yugi knew in theory, but he'd never had to put that theory to the test. At least, not until now.

The stranger walked over, taking Yugi's dagger with him. He looked at the old map for a moment, then his face twisted into a snarl and he plunged the dagger into it, like he meant to cut it to pieces.

"Wait, don't get rid of it! My grandpa's sort of like a historian back in my village, he'd love something like that - I mean, it might not be a fake, just really old. I bet he'd give you a good price for it, even with the damage. You could come by, stay a few nights? We could give you a real map too, one that's up to date."

"I don't know..."

"And my mother will want to thank you for saving me, too! A-and you could tell everyone that the wolf's been taken care of..."

It didn't occur to Yugi until after he'd said it that asking a strange man to come meet his family after spending a night naked beside him might be... misconstrued. The stranger thankfully didn't notice Yugi as he pulled the dagger out - he was too busy staring wide-eyed at where Yugi had hung the pelt off the ground. While he was distracted, Yugi make a small notch on the map where his village should have been.

The stranger walked over to it, running his own fingers through the now clean (-ish) fur. After a few moments, he smiled, the first time Yugi had seen of it. It was small, hesitant, and Yugi could tell he was capable of something much bigger and bolder, but even that was enough to send butterflies skyrocketing within him. "I guess one night couldn't hurt..."

Yugi held out his hand when he turned around. "I'm Yugi. Thank you for saving me."

The stranger hesitated for a second, then took it in his own. His hand was large enough to cover Yugi's almost entirely. "Jounouchi. You're welcome."

The two ate their breakfast not long after, when Yugi's stomach decided to loudly remind him that he hadn't eaten for far too long. In his haste to devour his share, he didn't notice that the stranger didn't touch a single pine seed.