"I'll be going now" said the young man at the entrance of his humble house.
"I expect you here before dusk, oh, and Atem"
"Yes?"
"Be careful of the fairies" said the old man, Atem snorted.
"Of course, grandpa"
He walked away from the shack, into the forest; axe in hand, looking for wood.
He hadn't been walking for long when he heard a boyish laugh in the distance, intrigued, he followed the joyful voice and found a majestic tree; a weeping willow stood there, in a ring of trees which, all, kept a distance from it, as if they were showing respect to the ancient tree, it's leaves fell long like curtains or even a waterfall of green; the view was astonishing, as if he had just entered another, magic, world.
He heard the laugh again.
He got closer and closer to the willow, the leaves caressed his face when he traversed the green curtain, and stopped an arm's length away from its trunk, when he heard it speak.
"It's that you?" he stopped breathing "Jounouchi?" the boy's eyes widened in shock.
His upper body had appeared out of the trunk, his hips connected to it, blonde curly bangs fell messily on his face, the rest of his hair was a soft lilac that curled up at the end like spikes, or as if it was trying to imitate a star, and his eyes were a pair of amethysts that were soon clouded with tears; he had some scars on his body, one on his left shoulder, right forearm and two on his torso, one at his right, it went from his bellybutton to his hip bone and the other on his left it started on the middle of his chest and ended on his last rib.
"Atem?" the boy's face was mere millimeters away from his, his voice sounded almost broken.
"How?" he took a second to recover oxygen "How do you know my name?"
Instead of an answer the boy's face twisted in sadness and tears came out of his eyes like waterfalls.
"Atem" he repeated, sobbing heavily, he tried to wipe away the tears but they wouldn't stop coming.
Atem's chest hurted at the sight and he felt the almost need to hug the willow boy.
Hesitantly, he put a hand on the boy's head, he grabbed and nuzzled it. He finally calmed down.
"You're back" he whispered.
"Sorry?" the boy ignored the question, he wiped his tears away and smiled at Atem.
"Hi" he said, as if had just happened hadn't happened at all "My name is Yugi, I'm the spirit of this forest"
Atem hesitated, but responded nonetheless.
"I'm Atem, though, you already knew that" Yugi snorted sheepishly.
"Yeah" he looked down "Sorry about that" a sad smile appeared on his face "You look exactly like someone important to me"
"And apparently share the same name" he said making Yugi snort.
"Yeah, but he's actually taller than you"
"Is not that hard to be taller than me" his sass made Yugi giggle.
He shouldn't be talking to the fairy, he should've, in fact, ran away the moment to boy's upper body came out of the willow. But he was still there; he didn't just not ran away, but he also made the spirit cry and consoled it; now he had just started a, rather casual, chat with the fairy.
"I should, get going, I came here for firewood and I have nothing" he smiled sheepishly "That and I need to get home before sunset"
Yugi nodded.
"I think I can help you with that"
The rest of his body came out of the tree; Atem flushed, the only clothing the fairy boy was wearing was some ragged cloth that was hanging of what was supposed to be thin belt with golden buttons at the sides, one cloth covered his manhood while the other barely covered his backside, nothing covered his ivory legs; he had a scar up his left thigh and another down his right, just above his knee.
The moment his feet touched the floor flowers slowly started growing around it; and like that he also noticed that the boy was around half a head shorter than him.
Yugi kneeled down and whispered something to the floor; the trees around moved as if a very strong wind was blowing them and a lot of branches started falling down.
"Wow" was all Atem could say and Yugi chuckled.
"You can take as much as you want"
"Just like that?" Atem stared at Yugi warily "You're not going to ask for anything in return?" Yugi shrugged.
"You don't have anything I want; but I guess it would be nice to have company" he said more to himself "I mean, you don't have to, if you don't want, they're just branches I don't want anything in return"
"I-I'll think about it" excused Atem while picking up a lot of branches "I'll be going now" he said when he finished.
"Goodbye Atem" Yugi waved and smiled.
"Goodbye, Yugi" he said before walking away.
After walking for a bit he noticed the sky darkening and when he arrived home his grandfather was waiting for him at the door.