Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Hard Choices
Characters: Yuuki Shinobu, Yuuki Masami, Yuuki Juudai
Word Count: 282||Status: One-shot
Genre: Angst, Family||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: 31halloween: prompt #13, scream
Summary: [one-shot, 31halloween, prompt #13, scream; Juudai, Juudai's parents] Juudai's parents love him very much. Sometimes, you have to do things you don't like because of love.


"Are you certain this will work?" Yuuki Shinobu watched as nurses wheeled the bed his son rested on into the room. He chewed his lower lip, shoulders tense. "I don't like this." He didn't care if it worked or not, this procedure played with his son's brain. A thousand terrifying options ran through his mind.

It wouldn't work at all. Juudai would still hear those screams, screams he and his wife couldn't, but he didn't doubt Juudai could. No one would make up something like that.

It would work but Juudai would lose that special spark that made him their son, brilliant and wonderful and sometimes crazy.

It would work too well and they would lose their son entirely, receiving a blank-faced stranger who didn't recognize them.

He glanced to where Masami sipped at her cup of coffee, her eyes as dark and worried as his. He suspected much the same sort of thoughts coursed through her own mind.

"He screamed, you know," she said, not looking at him. "Before they sedated him. He screamed her name."

Shinobu didn't need an explanation. He closed his eyes and wished with all of his soul that this worked. They couldn't get Yubel's card back from space. Whatever happened to it, whatever made Juudai scream like this, they couldn't do anything about it. All they could do was try to make Juudai forget. And hope that it would be enough.

The nurses set Juudai up in the device while the doctors murmured to themselves about procedures that made no sense to Shinobu. Juudai twitched in his drugged sleep and murmured words that struck deep into his father's heart.

"I'm sorry, Yubel..."

The machine turned on.

The End

Note: I originally posted this back in October 2012, but now am reposting these ficlets separately instead of as a collection, in order to have each listed under their proper character and rating.