I already posted a Puzzleshipping headcanon about them not saying “I love you” very often. They already know, they’ve loved each other for a long, long time. That much is undeniable.
I was thinking more about that today, and I was thinking of how Atem might answer if someone brought it up. Like “You guys never say ‘I love you’ or anything like that. Why?”
And in my mind, Atem would either work at the game shop, or make money through tournaments. Either way, he spends a lot of time at the house. If Yugi’s in college and goes to class, Atems got a lot of free time to fill. So he starts coming up with ways to surprise Yugi when he gets home.
Like one day Yugi walks in the door after a long day, and Atems gone and learned how to cook hamburgers and has a beautifully made one sitting there for him. When Atem sees Yugis eyes light up like stars, he gets a bit addicted to surprising him.
He sets up games and puzzles, goes out and buys small things he might find interesting. Nothing too expensive or flashy, its more about the idea. It cant be something everyone likes, it has to be something Yugi would love. He gets him lots of those little puzzle keychains to fiddle with in class. Once they sat and put together one of those wooden dinosaur skeletons. They ended up getting glue everywhere and sticking small bones to each others faces, but they got it done. Its still sitting up on a shelf in the shop and they joke that it guards the store at night. When Atem starts running out of ideas, Sugoroku gets in on it and starts fishing out Yugis favorite puzzles and games from when he was a kid. They sit and talk and play games and tell stories. Atem loves hearing new details about Yugis childhood, and sometimes Sugoroku joins in to embarrass his grandson.
Atem takes pride in knowing Yugi, and he does his best to use that knowledge to make him smile.