…The Ancient Greeks had four main terms for love. Eros, Philia, Agape and Stroge …
It was Anzu who broke the ice in the Cairo Airport as they waited to board the plane that would take them home. It was her who broke the silence and distracted their thoughts away from the unpleasant ones. The bittersweet ones.
… Eros is the physical attraction, the sexual desire, the heavily romantic feeling. It is passionate and intense. It does not have to be sexual in nature, but can be an extension of Philia. …
She could not stop thinking about him herself. After all he was the reason they were here, the reason for the silence, the reason for their grief. She had thought she had loved him (and at that point still did) and she isn't alone in her feelings. (The objects of the others of course are different.) There's Yugi's not-so-secret crush on Anzu which had been there since day one. (Buried sure but it had still been there.) Jou and Mai dance around their feelings on a regular basis, (and the sooner they admitted it the better for everyone involved.) Honda had loved Miho, until she moved away, and now is utterly infatuated with Shizuka. (To Jou's intense brotherly anguish.) Otogi too is crazy about her and there's Rebecca who certainly fancies Yugi. (Speaking of the little guy there's Vivian too who is after him, but she's irrelevant to the groups dynamics.)
Which is interesting when you look at it, with so many relationships within their group there is lot of Eros around.
But friendship isn't like that, that isn't the reason they are friends. And of course Eros isn't the only kind of bond they had.
… Philia is the term for the love friends share. It is warm and affectionate …
They had started to play a game on the small table in the waiting terminal. The boys were playing with a deck of cards. Poker, 21 or Mao by the looks of it. So they do know other card games besides Duel Monsters, Anzu was amazed.
There is plenty of Philia within the group. But then again, every friendship group on the planet is this kind of love, so it is no wonder it is considered one of their main bonds.
… Which leads us into Agape. A more intense form of Philia. This love is unconditional, selfless and runs deep. Agape is also considered to be 'true love.' It is Eros without the romance, Philia with more intensity. …
And it describes most of their bonds. Yugi and the Pharaoh had it, Yugi and Jou have it. In fact the core of their group is rife with it. There isn't much more to say, it is unspoken and very powerful. It is the kind of bond that made them risk their very lives and souls for one another again and again.
… All that is left is Storge. The love there is between family. …
Be it biological or chosen. Jou and Shizuka obviously feel it. By maybe it was Storge that made Mai come back. That bought Ryou back to them. The sense of family and belonging.
… Storge is one of the more minor forms of love, one of the more underappreciated ones.
Love is complex and varied and there is no one type around in any given situation …
Their group does have a representative for each type of love. Otogi is Eros, attracted to anything beautiful with a passionate desire. Honda in particular had a rough beauty he fancied, especially the way he held himself in combat. However Otogi had decided that Shizuka was the fairest of them all. This week.
Yugi is Agape, the focal point of the group as he was the one who attracted all of its members, and kept them together. The deep bonds he forged with those he met carried on throughout the rest of his days. For the rest of their days.
Anzu is Stroge, as the unofficial mother of the group. She was the one who bossed them around for their own goods, the one who would offer the cooldown hug. The one who would break the silence.
This leaves Philia; who is, strangely enough, Ryou. Once free from the oppression and obfuscation of the Spirit he eagerly sort and gave the warmth of Philia. It was this bond that had kept him going during those dark days, and it is this bond that will give him something to strive for.
Of all the love around, it is agape that is strongest within them. Philia bought them together, Eros tied some of them permanently and Storge enveloped them. But Agape is what ties them together. Forever bonding them.
xxx
And that is my round two entry for season seven. In apologise for the multitude of mistakes that are bound to be in there, it's rushed cause I didn't have much time. We are playing spot the Chaseshipping this time.
And by the way, storge actually means 'affection' in both Modern and Ancient Greek. It can also be used as 'family love' though. And a 'cooldown hug is a Tvtrope term. (To anyone who is unfamiliar with Tvtropes, go and check them out now. You won't regret it. Just take away the spaces, fanfiction hates urls for some reason. )
http : // tvtropes dot org
My original idea for this pairing was to make this Abridged verse, with the following exchange in mind. However, I couldn't find a way to make it work outside of this so I went with this idea instead.
"So Duke, do you wanna make out?"
"Do you even know what that means?"
…" Something about eyeliner?"
So yeah. I hope you enjoyed it. (Good luck to everyone else.)