Yoko woke feeling oddly weighed down, and at the same time strangely hollow. He opened his eyes to the cold glare of the morning sun and received a shock. The gentle face, the red hair spilling over those eyes with their long lashes…Suichi was lying with him, head tucked under Yoko's chin. Wait, then that must mean... Yoko raised his arm and stared at his hand, his fully materialized, solid hand. I'm alive. We…separated? I didn't think it was possible for our bodies to split and—wait. Is Suichi…did he—was his life sacrificed to make this possible…? The fox's panic disappeared when Suichi sighed in his sleep, his warm breath tickling Yoko's collarbone. Yoko sighed and rested his hand in the boy's soft hair. Then he's alive…we both survived intact. But did he keep his soul or was it too fully merged with mine? He scowled. Only one way to find out… He nudged Suichi's shoulder until his green eyes fluttered open.

"Wh-what—Yoko!" Suichi sat up, meeting Yoko's eyes with his own bewildered gaze. "How-what…I don't understand…what on Earth happened!?"

"I'm not sure," Yoko admitted. "But I'm just glad that somehow we're both still alive and that somehow we both have our souls. I do have a theory, however, as to how this came about."

"…Well?"

The fox smiled, truly glad the boy had bounced back with so much energy. "I think your body finally became too overwhelmed by my demon energy after nineteen years of all the stress I've been putting it through. Somehow, a tiny fragment of your soul must have remained when I took over all those years ago. You've been with me all this time and I never knew, and because I destroyed so much of your soul in that critical developing phase, it took nineteen years for you to grow to your full potential. Once you had, your body identified you as its proper owner and turned against me."

Suichi flushed. "I suppose that makes sense… but if that were true, then how is it I remember everything? The Dark Tournament, Yusuke…all of those are technically your memories. Why is it I have them too?"

Yoko shrugged. "I don't know the answer to that anymore than I know how my old body somehow turned up in your bedroom for my soul to repossess. We probably never will know. All we can do is guess. If you come up with a better explanation let me know, Suichi."

There was a long silence as they both stared at each other. The redhead met Yoko's eyes again. "Parts of your theory make sense…but I don't think you really…took over completely. Yours was a merger, not a possession. Somehow you…integrated my soul into your own, and over time I think that merge must have slowly broken until I split away with part of you and you split away with-with part of me. And then the rest of what you said—about my body rejecting you as its owner and kicking you out—I think that's true. If that makes any sense…"

Yoko reached out to touch Suichi's cheek. "It makes perfect sense, Suichi. I like that one better than my own," he said, grinning as the boy turned a brilliant shade of red. "Now come on. It's far too early for theoretical debates. Let's get some food and come back to this later, OK?"

Still furiously blushing, Suichi nodded and slid off the bed. Yoko watched his retreating figure, his initial shock wearing off and leaving joy in its wake. The fox threw himself backwards on the bed with a laugh, beating his tail against the mattress, solely because he could. He closed his eyes, still smiling, and let the sound flow through his ears; a;; so sharp, so crystalline, he could hear Suichi in the kitchen cracking eggs into a bowl, and the dog next door scratching at a door to be let in. The scent of frying eggs assailed his nose, combined with the bitter stench of car exhaust twenty stories below and the bittersweet scent that heralded a blazing hot summer day.

The fox rolled onto all fours and stretched, catlike, in the beam of sunlight streaming through the window, hearing the creak of long-dormant muscles wakening. It's good to be alive…