Notes: This one takes place when Jounouchi and Yuugi are twenty-one (though Yuugi's twenty-second birthday would be in a couple months, so this takes place circa 2002). So, as a reminder, they're not actually romantically involved yet, and neither one is aware of the feelings they have for each other. Of course, that doesn't always stop misconceptions . . .

Shiori and Kisugi are Yuugi's friends from university, and are my own creation, since I figure he would have had to make some friends while attending college. Because people in Japan address each other differently depending on their relationship, and since that can get a bit confusing when original characters are thrown into mix, Shiori's boyfriend's full name is Ishimoto Naoya and Kisugi's boyfriend's full name is Nimura Daisuke. Those are the only two whose names might be confusing, due to them being referred to by two separate names in this little fic, so I just wanted to make that clear up front!

Lastly, a kotatsu is a type of Japanese table that has a heater beneath it and blankets coming down off the sides. I don't think there's an English word for it/way to translate that, so I just used the actual word. But for anyone who is confused, that's what that is.

The Space Between Our Hands

Six: A Hand to Hold

Snow was a rarity in Domino City. Even in the winter months, when the temperatures dropped too low for Yuugi's comfort and stubbornly refused to rise until spring was well underway, snow was a rare event, a tease for high school students who prayed for cancelled classes and delayed exams. Back when he was still in high school, Yuugi had always been torn. On the one hand, a snow day meant that he could stay home and play games all day if he wanted, provided he also completed his chores and was available to help his grandpa in the shop. On the other hand, snow days meant snow, and school was never canceled for more than a day at the time, which meant that Yuugi would be trudging through the frigid slush the very next day anyway. Even an all-day game session in the middle of the week wasn't worth that most winters.

Now that he was in university, classes were rarely, if ever, canceled for snow, even given its rarity. There was no longer any benefit whatsoever to snow, and so as far as Yuugi was concerned, if the weather decided to never snow again (in Domino, at least—it could keep snowing in places like Hokkaido if it wanted), it would be too soon.

It was this attitude, combined with the fact that it was April and as such an injustice, that left Yuugi staring sourly out of the cafeteria window on a Thursday afternoon. An abnormal blizzard had struck the city the night before, as suddenly as if ten black mages had all decided to cast blizzaga at once, and even now a light snowfall swirled and scattered down on the quad, adding to the thick blanket already smothering the grass and early blooming flowers. Ordinarily, Yuugi, Shiori, and Kisugi would be eating lunch outside, underneath a large tree in the back corner of the quad. They had on Tuesday, after all, and even had Wednesday afternoon. The weather had been nice then, despite the cool breeze. But with the blizzard mutilating the newborn promise of springtime warmth the night before the three of them had been forced to retreat inside, crammed into a little corner booth from which their tree was visible from the window, but inaccessible due to the pile of snow weighing its branches down.

"Cheer up, Yuugi," Shiori said, and Yuugi tore his eyes away from the window to look over at her. She gave him an encouraging smile, a little octopus-shaped sausage held between her chopsticks above her bento box. "I'm sure the snow will be melted by next week, and maybe even sooner. It'll probably be the last snow of the season, too."

"There shouldn't be any snow of the season. It's April," Yuugi said, and Shiori put the sausage in her mouth to keep from replying. Beside Yuugi, Kisugi shook his head and took another drink from his hot raspberry cocoa. "It's not fair."

"Ah, but Mother Nature is as blind as sweet Lady Justice," Kisugi said as he set his cup back down on the table. "Fairness is not in her repertoire, at least not when she calls in a favor from her good friend Jack Frost."

Yuugi scowled, and poked at his yakisoba with his chopsticks. "Still."

"Besides, look on the bright side of things! Look at the benefits—the pros which far outweigh the cons!" Kisugi continued. "This weather is perfect, if you think about it. We couldn't ask for a better boon in early spring."

"How so?"

"How so? How so?" Kisugi laughed. "Yuu-kun, open your eyes! This weather is perfect for all kinds of lovely activities! It's perfect for blanket cuddles, kotatsu cuddles, cuddles around mugs of hot cocoa prepared by the sweetest of sweethearts—"

Yuugi rolled his eyes and looked back at his yakisoba, though he couldn't help the amused smile that twitched on his lips. "I thought you meant something like that."

"Of course I did!" Kisugi leaned back against the bench seat, a dreamy sigh escaping his lips as he looked up at the ceiling. "Ahh, when I get home tonight, both of my loves will be waiting for me with a warm kotatsu and cocoa and—"

"Home?" Shiori asked. "Did you move in with Nimura-kun and Ai-san?"

"No, no. Ai and I are just spending the night at Daisuke's place tonight," Kisugi said with a wave of his hand. "But does it matter? No matter where the three of us are, that is our home. Our hearts are united, and when joined they come together as one to create—!"

"Anyway, speaking of cold weather activities," Shiori said, and Kisugi gave her an scandalized look due to her interruption, "I was thinking that maybe we could all get together this weekend to go ice skating down at the pond in the park, since it froze over again. Maybe on Saturday?"

"Ice skating?" Yuugi said, and if the wintry catastrophe that had befallen their early spring hadn't dragged his mood down enough, he felt an unpleasant downward swoop in his gut. If Shiori noticed his lack of enthusiasm, she gave no indication of it; if anything, her smile looked a little more eager as she nodded.

"Yeah! Naoya and I went ice skating a few times over this past winter, and it was really fun. The pond is actually bigger than it looks, somehow; there's plenty of room to skate even if there are other people. We talked it over last night and we want to go again Saturday afternoon, and I figured maybe we could make a little thing out of it. Naoya and I will be there, and Kisugi can bring Nimura-kun and Ai-san—"

"Skating through an icy wonderland with a sweet love of mine on each arm? I can't think of anything better!" Kisugi said.

"—and you can bring Jounouchi," Shiori finished.

Yuugi poked at his yakisoba again, picking up a small bundle of noodles with his chopsticks to drag them halfway out of the little cardboard dish before he dropped them down again. "I guess . . ." he said slowly. "Jounouchi-kun might be busy, and I don't know if ice skating is really his thing . . ."

"But you never know until you ask, right?" Shiori said, and she leaned forward on the table a little. "And I'm sure if you ask he'll say yes. He usually does things with you that you ask him to, right?"

"It's not like that," Yuugi said. "Usually we're just into the same things."

"Well, see?" Shiori said, and she smiled brightly. "So I'm sure it'll be okay."

"Besides, there's no way he'll say no to you on this," Kisugi said. He stretched back against the bench seat and draped his arms along the back of it as he did so. "Just ask him all sweet-like and give him a big pair of puppy eyes and he'll be putty in your hands. That's how it always works with Daisuke and Ai and me."

"Aren't you usually the one giving them the puppy dog eyes?" Shiori asked.

"Details, details," Kisugi said, and although Shiori shook her head, she was smiling.

"Anyway, so that's that, then," Shiori said, and she pulled out her phone. "I'll mark it down. I was thinking we could all meet up at the pond at about one . . ."

While Shiori and Kisugi began to hash out the specifics of the ice skating get-together, Yuugi turned to look out of the window again. In truth, while he wouldn't give puppy dog eyes and whine to get his way like Kisugi, Yuugi had to admit that both Shiori and Kisugi had a point when they said that Jounouchi was likely to agree if it was something Yuugi suggested. Even if ice skating wasn't really something Jounouchi was interested in before, he was always up to try new things, and he rarely said no to a challenge or new idea. It was just the type of person he was. Unless he had something against ice skating due to a previous misadventure, there was a good chance he'd be interested in going just for the sake of trying it out.

But even if Jounouchi was on board with the idea, Yuugi wasn't. He wasn't sure if ice skating really counted as a sport outside of the Olympics, but even if it didn't, sports or sport-like games were never really his forte. Depending on the game he could sometimes make do; he had gotten better at laser tag over the years, especially with Honda giving him tips and pointers when it came to strategy and aiming. But games like soccer, basketball, and (Yuugi cringed to think about it) tetherball were still the last games he would ever volunteer to play, and they at least had the advantage of being games. Ice skating didn't even have that; it was just a physical activity out in the cold that required a lot more coordination than Yuugi thought he had. Of all the activities the snow and cold temperatures could be used for, Yuugi was pretty sure that ice skating was at the bottom of his list.

So his best bet, then, was that Jounouchi already had plans for Saturday that Yuugi could join in on. Shiori wouldn't pressure Jounouchi to give up his plans, and if Yuugi was able to go along, that would give him an excuse to ditch out as well. Not that he necessarily needed one, he knew; he could always just tell Shiori and Kisugi both that the last thing he wanted to spend Saturday doing was humiliating himself out on an icy pond. But although he considered it—although he was tempted—Shiori was practically glowing with excitement as she set a calendar reminder on her phone, and Kisugi was all but bouncing in his seat as he texted both of his partners to let them know. As much as he didn't want to go ice skating, he didn't want to kill their good moods, either—at least, not without good reason.

All he needed was for Jounouchi to come through for him.

Given that it was one of his rare days off, Jounouchi was home when Yuugi returned to their shared apartment after his afternoon classes let out, seated on the sofa with his legs kicked out beneath the coffee table while some action movie or other played on the television. He looked up when Yuugi opened the door, and grinned as their eyes met.

"Welcome home," Jounouchi said, and Yuugi—despite the fact that the bottoms of his jeans were soaked through with snow and slush—smiled back.

"Thanks, glad to be home," he said.

Jounouchi sat up to swipe the remote off the television, and lowered the volume on the TV as he fell back against the sofa cushions. "How was school?"

"It was fine. Nothing other than the usual happened," Yuugi said, and he kicked off his boots by the door. There was no helping how his pants would drag snow all over the carpet, but at least this way there wouldn't be shoe prints to go along with it. "Except . . ."

"What?"

"Shiori-san asked if you wanted to go ice skating this weekend, down at the park," Yuugi said. Jounouchi blinked in surprise, giving Yuugi his full attention now, and—realizing how Jounouchi must have interpreted that sentence—Yuugi continued. "Both of us, actually. Well, all of us. Shiori-san and Ishimoto-kun, along with Kisugi-kun, Nimura-kun, and Ai-san. They're all going ice skating Saturday, and they wanted to know if we would go with them."

"Sure," Jounouchi said, and with a casual shrug dashed all of Yuugi's hopes that he would be busy or otherwise uninterested. "Sounds like fun. What time?"

"One o' clock," Yuugi said. "You really want to go?"

"Yeah. I like skating, and I don't have to go into work until six on Saturday, so why not?"

"You like skating?" Yuugi said, aghast, and Jounouchi nodded. "Since when?"

"Uh . . . since childhood, I guess. Since I was maybe six years old?" Jounouchi said, and he gave Yuugi a bemused look. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Yuugi said quickly. Jounouchi snorted, and sat up a little straighter on the couch.

"Yeah, okay. You look like I just steamrollered your puppy and then sent you a 'whoops, sorry' card, but no, nothing's wrong. Spill."

"It's really nothing. It's just . . ." Yuugi walked over to sit on the armrest of the chair by the window, and heaved a sigh as he did. "I don't . . . I don't know how to skate."

Jounouchi was quiet for only a second before he said, "Seriously? That's it?"

"Um, yeah," Yuugi said, and frowned when Jounouchi laughed. "What? It's not funny."

"It kind of is," Jounouchi said, and Yuugi's frown deepened. "C'mon, Yuugi, it's not that big of a deal. So you don't know how to skate. So what?"

"So I'm going to crack my head open on the ice on Saturday, and probably look like the biggest idiot out there when I do," Yuugi said, and Jounouchi rolled his eyes.

"You're not gonna crack your head open, and you're not gonna look like an idiot, either. Skating's easy. I'll teach you."

"I—what?" Yuugi had been about to point out that, yes, he would crack his head open on the ice because he had no way to stop himself from falling and doing just that, but Jounouchi's assertion—as casual and yet certain as it was—took him off-guard. "You'll teach me?"

"Sure. Like I said, skating's easy, and you're a fast learner. Teaching you will be no problem. We'll get down there about an hour or so before everyone else, and by the time they show up you'll be skating like a pro." Jounouchi smiled, the expression confident and comforting all at once. "Deal?"

There was a part of Yuugi, a strong part, that was still insisting that ice skating was a bad idea, that agreeing to this would lead to nowhere but disaster, that he should call his grandpa and get himself a shift down at the game shop in order to get out of it. But there was something in Jounouchi's smile and in his tone that made Yuugi feel—made him believe—that it really was as simple as Jounouchi was saying it was, and that he had nothing to worry about. So he smiled back.

"Deal," he said, and Jounouchi's smile seemed somehow warmer, even as he turned his attention back to the movie he had been watching.

For a second or two they sat there in silence, watching the plot progression of the movie, but with the ice skating matter solved Yuugi became more aware of the fact that he was still bundled up in his winter gear, the bottoms of his jeans soaked, his winter coat heavy with melted snow over the sweater he was wearing underneath it.

"I should change into some dry clothes," he said, as a little clump of snow fell off his coat sleeve and onto the carpet.

Jounouchi had looked over in time to see that, and as Yuugi grinned, he snorted a laugh and said, "Yeah, that would probably be a good move."

As much as Jounouchi's confidence in his teaching ability had made Yuugi believe that Saturday's ice skating excursion would be all right, when the day finally arrived, Yuugi knew only one thing for certain:

"This was a mistake."

As Jounouchi had planned, they got to the pond about an hour, give or take, before Shiori and the others did. Surprisingly, there was no one else there; the paths around the pond were deserted, and while Yuugi could see one or two people on the park paths in the distance, none of them so much as glanced in their direction. The ice over the surface of the pond looked as thick as ever, and by Saturday hardly any of the snow had started to melt. But even as Jounouchi easily skated across its surface, having laced up his skates and jumped on the ice as soon as they arrived, Yuugi couldn't help the anxious little thought in the back of his mind that maybe the ice was melting, or that perhaps it would crack under their combined weight before either of them noticed.

Upon hearing Yuugi's claim, Jounouchi rolled his eyes and skated back to the bank of the pond where Yuugi was seated. Yuugi already had his own skates on and laced up, but he remained planted firmly in the snow, despite how it was starting to soak through his jeans.

"No it wasn't," Jounouchi said. "C'mon, you haven't even tried yet! Where's the Mutou Yuugi who never turns down a challenge, huh?"

"That's different," Yuugi said, and as Jounouchi raised an eyebrow, added, "Those are games. They're actually fun."

"And so is this, I swear. Here, give me your hands." Jounouchi extended both of his hands toward Yuugi, wiggling his fingers in invitation. Like Yuugi, Jounouchi was wearing gloves, but unlike Yuugi he'd only bothered to pull on a dark green hoodie over his t-shirt. How Jounouchi managed to stay warm in only a hoodie and jeans despite the fact that there was snow on the ground was a mystery to Yuugi. "I'll help you, just trust me."

"That's redundant," Yuugi said, and as Jounouchi gave him a confused look he said, "You don't have to tell me to trust you. Of course I do. I always have."

Jounouchi grinned, and curled his fingers in a come on motion, a little more insistently than before. "Then what are you waiting for?"

Whether he trusted Jounouchi or not (and he did, with his life, and always would), Yuugi still felt as though this was a bad idea. Nothing good could come of ice skating, he was sure of it. But Jounouchi had offered to teach him, and was holding out both hands to him, and as bad of an idea as ice skating might have been—as much as Yuugi would have much rather stayed home and played a co-op game with Jounouchi instead—Yuugi couldn't say no to that. So he reached up and allowed Jounouchi to pull him to his feet, and then out onto the ice.

"There, you see?" Jounouchi said. "Nice and steady, just take it easy . . ."

He didn't release Yuugi's hands as they made their way onto the ice ice, and for that, Yuugi was grateful. In twenty-one years Yuugi had never so much as strapped on a pair of ice skates, and the second he was actually standing on them he could see why. The thin blade of metal fastened to the bottom of the skate was just as hard to stand and balance on as Yuugi had thought it would be, and while part of him reasoned that it could be his nerves making the entire situation worse, he could have sworn that he could feel the little blades digging into the soles of his feet. He held Jounouchi's hands a little tighter as Jounouchi pulled him out toward the center of the pond, his eyes glued to their feet—to Jounouchi's backwards glide, and his own clumsy, jerky steps as he tried to follow—as they moved.

"You don't want to stomp like that," Jounouchi said after a moment, and Yuugi tore his eyes away from their skates to frown at Jounouchi. For whatever reason, now that he wasn't looking at what they were doing, Yuugi thought his legs felt a little wobblier, a little less steady.

"I'm not stomping," Yuugi said, though he knew full well he was.

"Okay, you don't want to walk like that, then," Jounouchi said, but he smiled, as if he knew that Yuugi knew that he was, in fact, stomping. Yuugi figured that was probably the case. "Skating's not like walking, it's like . . . you want to push yourself across the ice, kind of. You want your skates to slide."

"That's what I'm doing," Yuugi said, and as Jounouchi gave him a yeah, okay look, he said, "Or what I'm trying to do, anyway."

"You're lifting your legs too much. Here, watch me. See what I'm doing?" Yuugi looked back down at their feet, at how the blades of Jounouchi's skates moved seamlessly over the ice, hardly making a sound in contrast to the clacking of Yuugi's every time he took a step. "You want to do it like that, except forward instead of backward. Just kinda push yourself forward."

"Right," Yuugi said, but something in his tone or expression must have told Jounouchi that he had no idea how to go about doing that, because Jounouchi pursed his lips for a second before he said:

"Here, how about this: I'll let you go for a second, and you—"

"I can't—!"

"You won't move!" Jounouchi said, and true to his word he stopped them in the middle of the pond, firmly holding Yuugi's hands until they were both standing on the ice. "Just stand here and watch me for a second, all right? You can see what I do and then copy it."

Yuugi frowned, dubious, but nodded. Standing on the ice wasn't so bad, he supposed, even if the blades of his skates still felt paper thin and somehow flimsy, even if he could feel his own sense of balance swaying, threatening to betray him and send him careening onto the ice. Jounouchi slowly released Yuugi's hands and then began to skate backwards again, maintaining eye contact with Yuugi for a few seconds before he turned to skate a graceful lap toward the other end of the pond.

And it was kind of weird, Yuugi thought, how graceful Jounouchi looked. Jounouchi wasn't really a clumsy person by nature, at least not more than any other person was, but although he walked with loping strides, although he was definitely lean and agile, Yuugi had never really thought of him as graceful before. But he was now, his every movement smooth and so naturally coordinated. He made it look so easy, so simple, as if he only had to invest a modicum of effort into skating, and maybe not even that. It was as if the skates were a part of him, as if they didn't even exist or he had never moved without them, and Yuugi was so caught up in studying this that he hardly noticed when Jounouchi skated back to him, stopping just out of arm's reach.

"See?" Jounouchi said. "Easy. Now, do what I just did and skate to me."

Yuugi glanced down at his skates, and that little movement was enough to cause his left foot to slip a bit on the ice, which in turn made his heart jump to his throat as he threw his arms out for balance. "I don't think—"

"Yuugi, trust me and trust yourself. You can do this!" Jounouchi said, and he held out his hands again, his arms bent at his elbows. "Come on, just skate to me!"

Yuugi pinched his tongue between his teeth, his common sense screaming at him not to do it. Despite how much attention he had given Jounouchi's smooth, effortless movements, he really wasn't sure how to go about copying it. This wasn't like a game, where there was a certain combination of button presses to win, or clearly established outcomes depending on a dice roll or card flip. It wasn't something he could think his way through, but something he just had to do. And that was the problem, Yuugi thought. Skating wasn't a puzzle to be solved. It was an action to be taken.

But he had to try. He had never gotten anywhere in life by hesitating, by refusing to act, and he knew that. And if he fell, well . . . Jounouchi was right there, and he trusted Jounouchi. Jounouchi would catch him, he was sure of it.

Yuugi took a deep breath, and—reminding himself that skating wasn't walking, that it was sliding and he needed to push forward rather than stomp—Yuugi started forward, the blade of his skate scraping across the ice, displacing the little loose powder that had accumulated on the surface.

"There, see?" Jounouchi said, and Yuugi looked up to see that Jounouchi was grinning at him. "It's not so hard, right?"

Yuugi managed a shaky smile. "Yeah, I guess it's not so bad." Putting one foot forward wasn't so bad, anyway, and if he could do it with one foot, he could probably do it with the other.

That was what he thought, anyway.

As he lost momentum with his first foot, Yuugi tried to push forward with his second. He realized his mistakes—two of them, working in tandem—a second too late. The first was that he took too much of a step forward in an attempt to skate more quickly, once again treating his skates like shoes instead of the death blades strapped to shoes they actually were. The second was that, in doing this, he didn't put as much of his hips into the movement as he should have. That was part of why Jounouchi was so graceful, Yuugi thought. It wasn't like walking, skating wasn't in the knees, not really; it was all in the hips.

But realizing that a second too late didn't do him any good. The blade of Yuugi's skate slid across the ice with far more speed than he was prepared for, and the sudden slide not only lifted his foot clear off the ice, but tipped him backwards; Yuugi flailed his arms out in an attempt to catch himself, windmilling them as he tried to bring himself forward again, and succeeded just in time for Jounouchi to dart forward in an attempt to catch him. Jounouchi, too, succeeded; but in Yuugi's attempt to right himself he tried to catch his balance with his other foot, which—due to Jounouchi's quick save—resulted in his foot colliding with Jounouchi's ankle. Jounouchi hissed a swear between clenched teeth and stumbled, and his stumble—combined with Yuugi trying to pull back so he didn't accidentally kick Jounouchi again—caused his ankle to get hooked around Yuugi's. This sent them crashing down onto the ice in a heap, and due to the way Jounouchi grabbed Yuugi and spun them around as they fell, Yuugi ended up sprawled across Jounouchi's chest while Jounouchi hit the ice back-first.

For a moment, they were both still. Yuugi, for his part, didn't move because he was listening for the sound of splintering ice, waiting to feel the frozen pond give way to glacial water beneath them. But when it didn't, and the only sound was the wind and distant voices, he hastily scrambled off Jounouchi to kneel beside him instead.

"Jounouchi-kun, are you okay?" he asked. Jounouchi sighed, his face twisted into a grimace, but nodded as he pushed himself up on his forearms.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jounouchi grunted. "Nothing bruised except my pride and maybe my ass. What about you? You okay?"

"Yeah. You did a pretty good job of breaking my fall," Yuugi said. Jounouchi grinned at him, but Yuugi didn't return it. "Are you sure you're okay? You hit the ice pretty hard. You didn't hit your head or anything, did you?"

"Nah. And even if I did, I'm so tough we both know I'd do way more damage to the ice than it would do to me," Jounouchi said. His tone was light, and it was clear he was trying to make a joke out of it, but perhaps due to the look on Yuugi's face, he quickly became more sincere. "Seriously, Yuugi, I'm fine. Honda and I did way worse to each other playing ice hockey as kids. Always on accident, but still."

"You played ice hockey with Honda-kun?"

"Yeah, back in middle school. Then again, maybe it's not really hockey if it's just two dumb kids knocking a puck around, but it's the thought that counts." Jounouchi pushed himself to his feet before he extended a hand to Yuugi, who took it so Jounouchi could pull him up off the ice. "Usually it ended up just being a contest to see which one of us could check the other harder on top of scoring more goals, but hey, we had fun, so it's whatever."

"Sounds like it," Yuugi said, because even though it wasn't exactly his ideal way to spend an afternoon, from what little he knew of Jounouchi's time in middle school, days spent playing "hockey" with Honda definitely sounded like some of the better ones.

Jounouchi sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah. Anyway, Yuugi, I'm sorry. I figured maybe you could just copy me and figure things out from there, but that . . . was probably a bit of an extreme to jump to considering you've never really done this before. Sorry I made us wipe out."

"I'm the one that tripped you, and you broke my fall," Yuugi said.

Jounouchi shrugged. "Yeah, but you wouldn't've tripped me if I hadn't tried to make you skate solo when you're just starting out."

"So we're even, then," Yuugi said, and although Jounouchi gave him a skeptical look, he said, "So let's just keep trying, okay? Shiori-san and the others will probably be here soon. I think we've been here for about twenty minutes at this point."

It took a second, but Jounouchi smiled. "Yeah. Let's keep trying. Here, keep a hold of my hand—just one, this time. That might make it easier for you to follow what I do."

Yuugi nodded, and twined his fingers with Jounouchi's, who held his hand in a reassuring, tight grip. "Right. Lead the way, Jounouchi-kun."

It was a little easier this way, as Jounouchi had reasoned. With Jounouchi skating forward, rather than backward, it made it easier for Yuugi to try and copy his movements. By the time most of their hour had passed, Yuugi could skate forward on his own, even if he was still as wobbly on his skates as a newborn deer was on its feet. Skating backward was still out of the question, and turns were a lot more tricky; every time Yuugi tried to turn he either didn't turn enough and crashed into the bank of the pond, or tried to turn too much and almost wiped out on the ice (almost, but not quite, because Jounouchi was always there to catch him, thankfully without wiping out himself).

"I really think you're getting the hang of it, Yuugi," Jounouchi said, and he took Yuugi's hand again to guide him around the curve of the pond. He smiled, and Yuugi smiled back. "See? Skating's not so bad, right?"

"No, it's not so bad," Yuugi admitted, and Jounouchi's grin widened. "So long as I can stop crashing into the side of the pond, anyway."

"Well, that's what I'm here for. I can help you out with that." He looked up as they started forward across the pond again, and nodded his head toward the opposite bank. "Hey, looks like Shiori and the others are here."

Yuugi looked up as well, and saw that Jounouchi was right. Shiori was jogging up to the pond, her ice skates in one hand as her other hand gripped Naoya's (who, to Yuugi's complete lack of surprise, was using a large pair of headphones as earmuffs). Kisugi was right behind them, one arm linked with his boyfriend's while his other arm was linked with his girlfriend's. Yuugi couldn't help but snort a laugh. Kisugi had one love on each arm, just like he had promised.

"You ready to skate over?" Jounouchi asked, and he lifted up their joined hands to show what he meant. Yuugi considered it, glancing over at the pond bank, where his friends had started kicking off their shoes to pull their ice skates on instead.

"Yeah," he said, but even as he said it he realized that they had skated just far enough that they would need to turn, and as Jounouchi released his hand, Yuugi wobbled on his skates. "Except maybe—!"

His words cut off in a yelp as he slipped and careened forward, but once more Jounouchi caught his hand, holding him steady until he regained his balance. Jounouchi laughed, but it wasn't at all unkind, and despite what had to be his fifteenth near-spill, Yuugi laughed a little as well.

"Maybe not so much with the turns," Yuugi said, and Jounouchi grinned, swinging their linked hands between them as he guided him around to the gathered group.

"Yeah, no worries," Jounouchi said. "I've gotcha."