Kaiba stood anxiously in the sealed room, hearing Mokuba's voice echoing through his ear piece.
"So…it's been forever. Is he coming or not? M-Maybe you should sit down, Seto…"
"I'm fine, Mokuba," Kaiba responded through clenched teeth, trying to appear calm, but he knew his heart rate was elevated, and Mokuba could see that on his screen.
He was sure that he had gotten it right. He had mapped out every inch of Atem's room from the scan he had acquired while he had been unconscious on the pharaoh's bed. This was going to fucking work.
Atem just needed to be in his room.
"Shit," Kaiba cursed under his breath as he realized he had been so caught up in his own excitement that he had forgotten to set a meeting time with Atem.
Fuck.
"What?!" Mokuba cried shrilly in his ear, and Kaiba winced.
"Nothing," he responded tightly, planting his feet firmly apart and folding his arms across his chest, staring at the blank wall in the room.
If the first attempt failed, he would try again, and again, in pulses, so it wouldn't disrupt anything critical.
He bit back a sigh and gazed up at the two large pylons flanking the blank wall, thinking that this was the best he could do. This was the best material money could buy…on this entire fucking planet.
"Seto, it's been a whole day," Mokuba said softly in his ear. "I'm hungry. You've been standing there for the past…eight hours and seven minutes."
"He's coming," Kaiba said robotically, staring intently at the wall.
Time worked differently there, he knew that much.
He had slept for 24 hours, and as a result, a year and a few months had passed when he returned.
Mokuba had hugged him tearfully, while his technicians showed him charts of his brain activity from his year-long coma.
This meant Atem had probably been waiting for at least a year.
At least.
Shit.
Kaiba swayed slightly on the spot, willing Atem to appear, feeling his knees grow weak from exhaustion.
Nothing happened.
Everything remained silent,
"Seto! Please come back inside!" Mokuba shouted so loudly into the earpiece, there was a sharp electronic whine. "Just leave it on! It's monitored 24/7 anyway! Why do you need to be in there?!"
Fine. Fine. Goddammit.
Kaiba tore the earpiece out and kept it clenched in his fist while he slammed his palm right up against the scanner, letting the door slide open with a soft hiss, and he stalked out of the room, hearing it re-seal behind him with a solid click.
He stood motionless in the hallway, hearing Mokuba's frantic knocks on the glass, and he tried to suppress the wave of uncertainty that was rising quickly.
What if Atem didn't want to step through the portal? What if he had changed his mind?
Then I'm just wasting my time and energy, Kaiba thought angrily, storming off down the hallway towards the control room, willing himself to feel nothing.
They had kissed! So, what the hell did that kiss mean?
Atem had romantic feelings for him.
Atem would emerge from the barrier.
He was sure of it.
Atem knelt on the ground in the dark, poking at the small pile of embers and ash with a stick, satisfied with his handiwork.
Every page had been successfully burned.
He stood slowly and gave it a rough kick, scattering the pile in the darkness.
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, inhaling the crisp night air.
If he died while walking through the portal, so be it. What was life anyway?
He heard the soft rustle of footsteps coming up behind him on the stone path and he tensed, turning around to see Seth, towering above him, looking unusually stern.
"Pharaoh," the priest said respectfully, bowing his head and averting his gaze.
Atem blinked and swallowed nervously, his heart racing his chest.
What did he want? It didn't matter. What mattered was that the portal was going to show up any minute now!
"Step aside," Atem said quietly, attempting to dodge him quickly, but his path was blocked again as Seth stood before him stubbornly with his arms folded across his chest.
"Did I do something to make you angry?" the priest asked nervously, trying to make out an expression on the pharaoh's face in the darkness. "You've been avoiding me."
"And if you have, now isn't a good time to be talking about this," Atem responded angrily, giving Seth a rough shove to the side. Without waiting to see his reaction, Atem rushed back inside the palace, cursing under his breath.
He dashed through the dark hallways, counting the steps back to his room, holding his breath, feeling his heart thudding loudly in his ears.
The portal had better be there.
Atem burst into his room, trying to catch his breath as he was blinded by a searing white light coming from the window. Struggling to keep his eyes open, Atem raised a hand to shield his face from the light as he walked steadily forward, his heart threatening to explode from his chest.
It was here!
Was this it?!
Either the light was a hallucination that led him straight out the window, and he would break both his legs due to the fall, or…it was real, and walking through it meant he would enter Kaiba's world.
Yugi. Yugi's world.
Atem wavered on the spot, hesitating for a moment before he realized the opening was getting smaller.
Rocking back and forth on his feet, he took three steps back and grit his teeth, tensing his legs as he sprinted directly into the white light.
His heels stung as they hit the ground with force but he ignored the pain and continued barreling forwards into the blank space. There was nothing around him. Everything was white, but there was solid ground beneath his feet, and the air was thin. It was getting harder to breathe, and it was as if an invisible hand had reached down inside of him to grab his lungs, slowly squeezing the air out of them with every step forward.
Atem blinked rapidly, seeing green spots dancing in his vision as he pressed on, and cold fear gripped his entire being.
There was nothing here! Where was the other side?
In a sudden rush of anger and desperation, Atem charged forward with the last of his energy.
His toes caught on something invisible which sent him crashing to the ground painfully, and his palms slapped against cold tiles while his eyes stung from the brightness of it all.
A screaming alarm went off somewhere above him, and the noise sent shooting sharp threads of pain directly into his eyes, causing a throbbing headache to build behind his ears.
"Curse you, Kaiba!" Atem yelled, feeling nauseous and dizzy as his vision began fading in and out.
There was nothing.
Just whiteness.
And pain.
A pain in his chest, which was spreading like fire throughout his entire body.
Atem shut his eyes tightly and struggled to his feet, feeling his knees give out as his world went dark.
Kaiba raced frantically through the wide hallway towards the sealed room with the loud clattering of the gurney echoing behind him, followed by several sets of pattering footsteps.
He was hating himself for leaving the control platform, even if it had been at Mokuba's insistence.
Kaiba took long strides towards the glass room, and his heart stuck in his throat when he saw a lifeless spiky-haired figure lying face down and motionless on the floor of the room.
Shit. Shit.
He slammed his hand down on the sensor and the doors slid open with a soft hiss.
The nurses rushed into the room before him, and the gurney ran over the top of his left foot in their haste.
With his eyes watering with pain, Kaiba watched as two men gently lifted Atem up onto the stretcher as the other two nurses stood flanking the bed, their hands pressing down onto his body everywhere, checking his vitals.
The two nurses shared a grim look and Kaiba gripped the doorframe, his anxiety rising as his legs threatened to give out beneath him.
"Spit it out," he breathed, watching them shake their heads and wheel the bed towards the door hurriedly, their eyes wide with panic.
"Step aside, Mr. Kaiba. We'll see you in the other room," the nurse closest to him said hurriedly.
Kaiba blinked rapidly, trying to contain his own panic as he let them brush past, and he caught a brief glimpse of Atem's gold-adorned arm draped limply over the side of the stretcher.
He raced after the gurney, unable to tear his eyes away from the golden cuffs hugging Atem's tanned ankles.
Was this real?
Or was this a horrible nightmare he couldn't wake up from?
Because he had had way better dreams than this.
In some dreams, Atem had come walking through the barrier with a smile.
"What's wrong with him?" he heard himself ask, and one of the nurses who still had her hand to Atem's neck answered him vaguely. "Irregular heartbeat…elevated temperature…we don't know."
The stretcher was pulled into another room and Kaiba stood off to the side as he watched his medical team bustle purposefully around Atem, his anxiety rising higher and higher the longer Atem remained unconscious.
He looked thin. Had he always been this slender?
"We need to remove all of this metal," another nurse said, tapping at Atem's collar and arm bands.
Kaiba swallowed nervously and nodded, watching Atem's wrist flop uselessly as two doctors moved to help the nurses remove the jewelry.
Feeling as if he was in a faraway land watching his own life from a distance, Kaiba gathered Atem's finery in his arms and moved away from the bed to find a place to put them down.
It was heavy. All of it was heavy.
It was real. All of this was real.
He placed them in a neat stack on the seat of a metal chair and sat down in the one beside it, crossing one leg over the other, his heart racing uncontrollably.
His back was drenched in a cold sweat.
What if something had happened to Atem while he passed through the portal? Something terrible? Something irreparable? Had his mind been affected?
But he had come through in one piece!
Kaiba palmed his face, pinching his brow anxiously.
But just because the person lying in that bed looked like Atem, did not necessarily meant that it was Atem.
His mind could be gone, and this body might remain lifeless forever.
That was the worst possible scenario.
Kaiba forced the unpleasant thought from his mind and tried to refocus.
He stared at his shoes.
They were very black against the white tiles.
He could hear the unsteady beeping of the heart monitor and concerned murmurs of the medical staff.
His ears were ringing with white noise.
He couldn't hear what they were saying.
Atem was fine. Atem would wake up.
He would wait. Kaiba vowed to wait.
It didn't matter if Atem woke an hour from now, or ten years from now.
What mattered was that he was here.
He was really, physically here.
The Pharaoh, the true king of games, Atem, was here, in this realm.
It had worked.
But had it really worked if he didn't wake up?
"Mr. Kaiba."
Kaiba jerked his head up so quickly, his neck ached.
A masked doctor stood before him respectfully, bowing stiffly before speaking. "We've managed to stabilize him, but…"
"But what?" Kaiba growled, slowly rising to his feet, catching another glimpse of the bottoms of Atem's blackened shoes.
"It seems he may have suffered a mild cardiac arrest, either from stress or malnutrition," the doctor said calmly. "We've done everything we can for now, and we'll monitor him closely for the next…"
Kaiba didn't hear the rest of anything the doctor said.
Cardiac arrest?! Malnutrition?! All of his fucking efforts were somehow thwarted because Atem's ancient diet was so poor, he couldn't withstand the stress of exiting the portal!
What the hell did they eat over there?!
"Mr. Kaiba?" the doctor cleared his throat politely. "There should be no lasting damage...mental or physical. We'll put him through a scan as soon as he is able."
Kaiba curled his fingers into the palm of his hand and nodded tightly, watching the doctor bow again before hurrying back towards the machine that was now hovering at Atem's bedside.
The steady beeping of the heart monitor was driving him insane, so he quietly exited the room, trying to quell the surge of despair curling deep in his chest.
Atem pried his eyes open slowly, staring up at the dim strips of light in the ceiling above him.
He sat up slowly and winced, feeling oddly sore all over. He swept his gaze around the sterile, spacious room, and realized with a pleasant jolt that Kaiba was asleep in the chair right beside him.
There was another chair beside Kaiba, and in that seat sat a stack of his arm bands, ankle bands, his shoes, his crown and collar, and his clothes.
Atem blinked and glanced down at himself, reddening slightly when he realized he was wearing a thin, blue paper gown.
Different colored tubes were attached to the middle of his arm, and they were connected to a strange machine hanging above his head, from which a solid beeping was steadily emitting.
Thin white tubes were also attached to his chest, stomach and thighs, and just looking at them made his skin itch.
Atem stared intently at the middle of his arm, counting the tubes and swallowing his fear as he spied the dark purple and black bruises surrounding the base of each tube where it connected to his skin.
Am I sick? he thought fearfully, hearing the beeping noise increase above his head along with the frantic beats of his heart, and he stared at the numbers on the screen, thinking he knew the name for this medical box.
Heart monitor.
Blinking slowly, Atem stared at Kaiba's motionless form in the chair, holding his breath and wondering if he was dreaming.
Kaiba's pale hand was propping up his head on the armrest, and his light brown hair fell softly over his knuckles, obscuring his eyes completely.
"Kaiba…?" Atem spoke tentatively, lifting one of his legs and wiggling his toes, thinking he felt fine.
Well, if Kaiba was sitting here, this meant he had made it through the portal!
Atem leaned daringly over the edge of the bed, reaching his hand out, trying to touch any part of Kaiba, but the second he stretched his arm out all the way, the middle of his arm stung badly.
Hissing in annoyance, Atem curled his fingers over the tubes, freezing suddenly when he felt sharp metal points digging into his skin, causing more mild thuds of pain to shoot up his arm.
Needles. These tubes had metal points at the ends.
Gritting his teeth, Atem carefully peeled the plastic off his skin and slowly extracted one tube out of his skin, frowning at the odd clear liquid leaking from the metal tip.
It pooled across his skin before it dripped down onto the white sheets, and a foul smell invaded his nostrils.
Disgusted, Atem pushed it off the bed and proceeded to extract the other sets of tubes from his arm, working quickly, thinking that he could sit on Kaiba's lap until he woke up. That would be a pleasant surprise for him.
He pulled the odd plastic clamp off from his index finger and suddenly, a shrill blaring alarm sounded wildly in the room.
Tensing in fear, Atem watched as Kaiba jerked awake and stared right at him for a brief second before a team of masked doctors and nurses appeared seemingly out of nowhere and converged around him, hiding Kaiba from his view.
"I'm fine…I'm fine!" Atem insisted, shaking his head at the main doctor who was wearing white. He could feel gloved hands grabbing at his arms and re-inserting the tubes.
One nurse had a finger to his neck, checking his pulse, while another nurse swiped a flat, bitter tasting strip of paper across his tongue. Another man hovered over him, shining a light into his eyes while lightly pulling at his cheeks.
"Don't move, please," a commanding voice said from somewhere above him. "Can you tell us how you feel? What was the last thing you ate?"
"Kaiba…get them off me," Atem said firmly, staring at the gloved hands snaking up his arm and taping the tubes firmly down into his skin.
"No," came Kaiba's cold voice from behind the doctor somewhere on his left. "Answer the question."
"I'm fine," Atem said angrily, glaring at the doctor to his right as the thermometer was removed from his ear. "And nothing. I ate nothing for the past three days."
There was a long silence, and the crowd of nurses to his left parted respectfully as Kaiba towered furiously at the edge of his bed, his eyes narrowed into thin slits.
"Why the fuck would you do that?!" he spat, and Atem swallowed nervously, glancing around at the shocked faces around them.
"I wasn't-I wasn't hungry," Atem said weakly, and there was another heavy silence.
"You almost died because of that," Kaiba hissed through clenched teeth, and Atem blinked slowly, feeling lightheaded as cold gloved hands squeezed the back of his neck and let go just as suddenly.
"He's quite stable now, Mr. Kaiba," a man said, somewhere to his right. "Bed rest and fluids."
"How long have I been unconscious?" Atem asked fearfully, jerking his arm away from the nurse who kept patting the plastic seal at the middle of his arm. The fluids were making his body feel oddly numb.
All eyes turned on him and Atem felt his skin burn.
"Speak Japanese," Kaiba said tersely as the two nurses at his side moved away silently.
Atem sat up straighter, startled. Wh-What…?
"I just did," he replied indignantly, and he watched Kaiba shake his head slowly, looking strangely distant, so he spoke again. "How long have I been unconscious? Tell me!"
Kaiba blinked rapidly, staring into Atem's angular eyes, feeling his chest grow tight. What the hell…?! He had been speaking just fine a few seconds ago, but now, he couldn't understand a word the pharaoh was saying!
"I think we need to put him through a scanner," Kaiba said tightly, addressing the doctor standing across from him, and he walked away quickly, hearing Atem shout after him, the strange syllables ringing oddly in his ears.
"Come back here! What scanner?! How long have I been unconscious?!" Atem grit his teeth and tried to shrug the doctor off of him, but the hand on his shoulder only tightened further.
A wheelchair appeared at the edge of the bed, and many warm hands helped him off the bed and into the chair.
Trying to contain his panic, Atem's eyes darted around the room, wondering why there was no furniture. Kaiba was standing at the door, holding it open for the group of nurses and doctors who filed past him silently, each bobbing their heads politely when they passed.
Frowning, Atem shot Kaiba a glare as he was wheeled past and Kaiba tried to quell his rising panic.
What if it was some weird voodoo shit that was making Atem forget the Japanese language?
But how would he have learned Japanese in the first place? Kaiba wondered as he tried to sort his thoughts out in his confusion. Through Yugi?
He planted his feet apart in the hallway behind the glass window and watched the doctors help Atem onto the MRI table.
"Does he have any piercings or other metals in his body?" the doctor's voice warbled through the speaker, and Kaiba clenched his jaw. How the fuck was he supposed to know the answer to that?!
He saw Atem shake his head vigorously and open his mouth to speak, but again, strange sounds fell from his lips, and Kaiba felt himself sweat. Oh fuck.
Well, hopefully this language barrier was temporary.
They could understand each other perfectly before, so there was no reason they wouldn't be able to do so again.
The soft pattering of footsteps echoed up the hallway and Mokuba appeared at his side, pressing his nose against the glass, sounding breathless and excited. "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Seto! Is that…?!"
"Yeah, that's him," Kaiba replied hollowly, watching Atem's tanned feet slide back into view as he slid out of the scanner and was helped off the table by several nurses.
Kaiba saw Mokuba pull out his cell phone and he frowned. "What are you doing?"
"Texting Yugi!" Mokuba replied excitedly, and Kaiba snatched the phone out of his hands, holding it out of reach, his heart pounding nervously in his chest as Mokuba glared angrily at him.
"Hey!" Mokuba cried, folding his arms across his chest, wondering why Seto was suddenly against spreading the word of his own accomplishments.
Atem turned his head when he heard voices through the glass and stared at the unfamiliar face standing beside Kaiba, wondering who the second spectator was.
It was a young teenager in his pajamas. He had sleek black hair and wide, angular eyes.
Wait.
Atem felt the wheelchair move forward as he was pushed towards the door and he received a mild shock when the teenager waved at him, grinning widely.
The smile was familiar.
M-Mokuba?!
Frozen in disbelief, Atem willed his arm to move upwards to return the wave, but found that he couldn't. Mokuba looked exactly the way he did in one of his dreams! How many years had passed? But Kaiba looked…relatively the same.
He was silently wheeled past the Kaiba brothers and back into the empty room with no furniture before he was helped back into the lone hospital bed.
The two nurses worked quickly, reinserting the needles into his arm.
Atem winced when they stung slightly and the plastic clamp was secured over his index finger again, causing the infuriating beeping from the heart monitor to resume.
A rush of footsteps echoed through the room, and Atem glanced up excitedly, watching Mokuba approach his bedside cautiously with a small smile.
"Pharaoh!"
Wow, Mokuba's voice even sounded different. He was like a fully-grown man already!
Atem tried to rearrange his face into a pleasant expression but he knew that his shock clearly showed through.
"Or…do we still call you Yugi?" Mokuba fidgeted nervously, spying the stack of gold jewelry on the metal chair leaning against the wall. He figured that Seto's names for the Pharaoh were all inappropriate, and calling him "The One True King" to his face felt awkward.
"Mokuba," Atem said warmly, managing a smile, this time and he tried his best to ignore the way Kaiba was hovering behind his little brother.
But Mokuba wasn't 'little' anymore, because his head now reached the center of Kaiba's chest, and Atem couldn't help but stare.
"You remember me!" Mokuba cried, throwing his older brother an excited smile over his shoulder and craning his head to look upwards. "He remembers me!"
"You can understand me?" Kaiba spoke, sounding as numb and hollow as he felt, and he watched Atem nod slowly, looking very serious.
"I can. Can you understand me?" Atem asked hopefully, and the shocked look on Mokuba's face was the only answer he needed.
"Wh-What language is that, Seto?" Mokuba asked shrilly, giving his brother's arm a frantic tug and watching Atem's expression darken.
"Shit," Kaiba cursed, and Atem made a frantic writing motion with his hands. Pen and paper.
"I'll get it!" Mokuba said hastily, rushing out of the room and slamming the door loudly behind him, leaving Kaiba and Atem in the ringing silence.
A strange pressure began building behind his eyes, and Atem forced himself to remain calm. Had he somehow lost the ability to speak Japanese?
But he understood everything perfectly! And the first few sentences he had spoken when he first opened his eyes had been understood.
Gripping the hospital sheets tightly, Atem gazed up into Kaiba's face, catching his eye and seeing his expression pulled into one of deep worry.
"I'm really fine," Atem ventured, trying his best to twist his tongue into sounds that were familiar, but all he could hear was his own voice, speaking his own language fluently.
"Do you think in Japanese?" Kaiba asked roughly, and already in his mind, he was thinking of ways to sync an electronic translator to Atem's voice.
Do I? Atem wondered frantically, feeling his palms sweat with nervousness. How would I even know?!
Kaiba watched Atem lean back into the pillows and fold his arms across his chest, looking deeply pensive. This was an expression he had sorely missed. This was the face he was the most accustomed to seeing across the dueling arena!
His heart pounded tightly in his chest before leaping into his throat when he saw Atem tuck his hand under his chin, clearly still lost in thought.
He looked so confused…he looked so handsome when he looked confused….
Without thinking, Kaiba acted on a whim and bent down to kiss him, feeling Atem freeze for a moment before slowly unfolding his arms to throw them over his shoulders, pulling him in close as their tongues melted against each other in a happy greeting.
Atem's breath hitched painfully in his chest each time he tried to take a small breath as Kaiba's warm scent of coffee and something else washed over him like a calm wave. Kaiba's lips were soft against his, but he was being kissed with deep fervor.
He could feel the pillows sinking down beside him on either side as Kaiba's hands were pressed into the cushions while he leaned down into him from above.
He could taste Kaiba's sweet breath on the tip of his tongue each time he pulled away and came back with a passionate force, and it was the most wonderful thing.
Kaiba felt himself falling deeper and deeper into Atem. The warm arms wrapped around his neck sent searing waves of fire running up and down his entire body while Atem kissed him back with equal vigor, his silky tongue occasionally slipping in and out across his lips, tasting like a wonderful mint.
It felt so nice, it felt so familiar….
There was no pause in their motions and Atem seemed to innately understand exactly what he wanted.
Kaiba boldly slid his arm lower down along the pillows, the tips of his fingers finding the thin opening at the back of Atem's hospital gown, and he slid his hand in smoothly to touch him, burning at the heat of Atem's skin.
Atem shivered happily at his touch and nibbled playfully on his lower lip, smiling into the kiss and opening his eyes a slight crack, enjoying the way light brown hair obscured his vision, and he shut them again, sighing happily as his stomach tightened with arousal.
This was the kiss he wanted! This was better than any kiss he could've dreamed of! More! More of this…did Kaiba want to touch him more underneath…?
Mokuba dashed through the hallway, carrying the tablet in his arms, his chest bursting with excitement.
He leaned the door open and was rooted to the spot with shock and horror at what he saw. Seto was bent over the hospital bed, furiously kissing Atem on the mouth with one knee pressed against the edge of the plastic bed frame, and Atem's tanned hand was sliding suggestively up and down the center of his crotch.
Mokuba was having trouble finding his voice.
His chest tightened with a crushing feeling as he watched Seto reach down to press Atem's hand tighter onto his bulge underneath his pants, and Mokuba felt himself burn with a mixture of terror and humiliation.
What the heck was this?! G-GROSS!
He opened his mouth to shout, but found that his voice was stuck in his throat and had formed an enormous lump, choking the air out of him the longer he stood there, watching Seto buck his hips shamelessly into Atem's palm and hearing Atem's deep laugh echo throughout the room.
"S-Stop it…stop it…" Mokuba whispered weakly, and he kicked the door shut behind him, causing a loud bang, startling both Seto and Atem, and both heads turned to stare in his direction.
Atem felt his heart stop in his chest the moment Kaiba pulled away, causing his lips to burn and swell from the sudden loss of contact.
Kaiba paled and hastily extracted himself from Atem, folding his arms across his chest before turning to face the wall, feeling his entire body burn while his erection throbbed painfully.
Damn.
The last thing he needed was for Mokuba to think he had pulled Atem from the afterlife so that they could fuck. Well, that was on his to-do list, but it would've been preferable if Mokuba didn't know that.
"What…the heck is wrong with you?!" Mokuba fumed, directing the question at Seto and gripping the tablet so hard, his fingers slipped on the glass surface from his nervous sweat.
Why was Seto touching Atem like that?!
No, actually, the real questions was: Why was Atem touching Seto like that?!
Seto was in his year-long coma because…he wanted his dick stroked by Atem?!
He glared intensely at Seto's back and watched Atem lower his head so much, his blonde bangs obscured his face.
"Yeah, be embarrassed!" Mokuba shouted, finally finding his voice. "Here's your stupid tablet, Yugi."
He tossed the electronic pad onto the hospital bed and stomped off, not bothering to look behind him once.
Atem blinked rapidly, composing himself quickly before reaching for the tablet and tapping it, trying to ignore the rapid pounding of his own heart. Mokuba was angry.
A pale hand reached down across his nose and snatched the tablet out of his hands, and Atem bit back a retort, watching Kaiba's eyes light up as he swirled his finger across the surface before dropping it back into his lap.
Atem stared at the sentence Kaiba had written.
"No sex until the doctor says OK."
Bristling at this, Atem pressed his finger onto the blank surface and hastily wrote his reply, feeling his cheeks burn with a mixture of joy and embarrassment.
Kaiba watched with rising amazement as Atem wrote with neat strokes and shoved the tablet up into his face.
"Whatever. I'm more concerned about Mokuba's reaction."
"You can write!" Kaiba said excitedly, ignoring Atem's message completely as he was consumed with a fiery spark of hope. "Then why can't you speak?!"
Atem shrugged furiously and rested his hands in his lap, feeling his boner poking up through the thin sheets underneath him. What he really wanted to know was what Kaiba had meant by 'no sex', because his own definition of sex was penetration, and no penetration was needed if Kaiba would willingly lick his penis.
"I see," Kaiba said seriously, talking to himself and clearly lost in his own train of thought as he stared at the neat lines of Atem's handwriting. "Assuming you shared a mind with Yugi, the language part of your brains must have been shared too."
Atem froze, realizing that that suddenly made a lot of sense. That must be why he couldn't speak any more than a few simple words! Kaiba was a genius!
And Kaiba wasn't finished rambling. "Now you are speaking without the assistance of Yugi's mind, so this might mean you have to re-learn Japanese. But you somehow can write very fluently, which is amazing, because that means you must know enough to—"
The tablet was shoved in his face again and Kaiba read the words quickly, deeply appreciating Atem's neat handwriting.
"I can understand you perfectly when you speak as well. I just need some time to adjust. Get me out of this horrible room and give me my clothes back."
"You want to wear…that?" Kaiba asked, unable to keep the horror from leaking into his voice as he threw a glance at the stack of gold jewelry gleaming on the metal chair.
Atem nodded and shook his head in frustration, hastily erasing the words on the tablet and writing furiously again.
Kaiba bent down to read.
"Goddamit Kaiba! Just any clothing is fine! I don't want to sit here, and be poked and prodded at day and night."
Smiling tightly, Kaiba nodded and placed a reassuring hand on Atem's shoulder, hearing the door to the room open, and they both jerked their heads up to see who had walked in.
To their relief, it was the doctor and not Mokuba.
"Mr. Kaiba," the doctor said politely, stopping at the foot of the bed and bowing stiffly. He held the clipboard up to his face and lifted his glasses off his face, reading mechanically off the chart.
"Everything looks good. His vitals are all…"
Atem zoned in and out as the doctor spoke, focusing on Kaiba's warm hand on his shoulder.
It hadn't quite dawned on him that he had been transported back into the present, so the realization hit him particularly hard in this moment.
The doctor was detailing information about this body.
His body.
He was alive, in his own body.
He wasn't tethered to Yugi anymore!
And it was all thanks to Kaiba and his impressive engineering!
"…and he really shouldn't be walking long distances," the doctor finished, passing Kaiba the clipboard, and Atem watched Kaiba's clear blue eyes dart quickly from left to right, reading quickly.
So…handsome, Atem reeled privately, studying every curve of Kaiba's jawline, watching him hand the clipboard back and step aside, letting a nurse approach the bedside with a tray of food.
"We'll monitor everything and send the logs from his food consumption and hourly rest straight to you. Don't worry, Mr. Kaiba." the doctor said, and Atem began to panic slightly, feeling oddly trapped.
Kaiba was keeping him here like a lab rat!
"How soon can we move him?" Kaiba asked, trying not to sound aggressive. He knew Atem hated being kept in this room, and the sooner they moved him somewhere more comfortable, the happier he would be.
Nudging the tray of food aside, Atem snatched up the tablet once again and hastily began writing an angry sentence, propping it up when he was finished for the doctor to see.
The doctor's ears reddened slightly with embarrassment and pointed over Kaiba's shoulder.
Kaiba turned around to read the words written in bold red ink across the tablet in Atem's hands.
"YOU WANT TO MONITOR MY WASTE TOO?! HOW DARE YOU! DO I LOOK LIKE A LAB RAT TO YOU?! MY CLOTHES, NOW!"
The room fell silent, and the nurse at Atem's bedside turned away, covering her mouth to stifle a giggle.
Kaiba grit his teeth and willed himself to keep his patience.
"Well, you know what, your majesty?" Kaiba said spitefully, enjoying the way Atem's eyes widened at the corners, "You almost died coming out of the barrier, so this is for your own damn good."
Atem glared viciously at him and hastily wrote something on the tablet before holding it up for the room to see again.
"OUT IN ONE WEEK. AND I WANT A HAMBURGER."
"Ah…that-that might not be ideal." the doctor stammered, his eyes darting between Kaiba and the odd spiky-haired foreigner in the hospital bed. "Clean eating, please. And we could possibly release you within one week, under special circumstances."
Kaiba watched with growing amusement as Atem ducked his head down to write furiously on the tablet before angling it towards the doctor, still looking furious.
"COULD POSSIBLY? How about a 'yes for sure' doctor?"
"And you probably won't even like the taste of hamburgers anymore," Kaiba said nastily, hoping to deter Atem from continuing to argue with the doctor. "You were eating through Yugi, as strange as that sounds."
Atem blinked and lowered the tablet a fraction as a bubble of doubt and wonder curled inside his chest. Indeed! That was true! Dammit it all to hell, Kaiba had to ruin all of his hopes.
"V-Very well then!" the doctor said genially, clapping his hands together in an attempt to relieve the tense atmosphere in the room. "Bed rest, and we will see what we can do for you in a week, Mr. …?"
"Atem," Atem said loudly, hearing his own voice resonate in the room, and he felt the nurse beside him fidget nervously.
"Ah, he can understand after all," the doctor said mildly, looking thoroughly unfazed. "Come, Mr. Kaiba. I have something else to discuss with you regarding Mokuba's recent growth spurt. He might have to start taking calcium supplements for…"
Kaiba nodded, half-listening, giving Atem a nervous glance over his shoulder.
Atem waved carelessly at Kaiba, dismissing him and aiming his attention back down at the tablet. Did this thing make phone calls? And if so…who would he call? Yugi?
But why? A small voice in the back of his mind grew louder with each beat of his heart.
Yugi was his own person, just like how he was in his own body now. Why would he tell Yugi he had returned to his realm? Yugi was probably grateful to be free of the burdensome spirit which had followed him around everywhere during every waking and sleeping moment of his life.
"Atem-san," the nurse said gently, and Atem startled with surprise. He had forgotten she was still in the room. He watched her pull a cart towards his bedside and set the tray of food onto its surface. "Please eat."
"It's just Atem," Atem said nervously, watching her blink politely back at him, and he sighed before carefully writing a few words onto the tablet and holding it up for her to read.
"No honorary please. Just 'Atem' is fine."
"Very well," the nurse said, bowing deeply and straightening up again to point at a round black dome curving down out of the ceiling. "This camera is well-meaning and is in no way malicious. The doctor has instructed that you eat until you are full. No hiding food. We can see you."
"Fine." Atem said stiffly, watching her bow again before leaving him alone in the room.
So odd. Everyone was always bowing.
Back in his palace, people were bowing, and here, people were also bowing.
It was a strange parallel.
No one had ever bowed to Yugi as often, and no one had bowed to him as frequently when he had shared a body with Yugi.
The silence was ringing and suffocating.
Why am I here?! Atem thought angrily, stabbing his index finger into the tablet and watching a few apps appear on the screen. At least this all looked familiar, and that was a good sign.
He would get well soon, eventually.
He would be able to walk, talk, and get around Domino City on his own.
He would be in the company of Kaiba, and Kaiba garnered attention, cameras, and fans wherever he went.
Yugi would see him eventually, right?
Would he be angry? Angry that he didn't tell him he had returned? Angry that Kaiba had pulled him out of his supposed "peace"?
Angry because his return meant that the attention would be shifted away from his accomplishments? Would there be a debate about who was the true "king of games"? Did that even matter anymore?!
Atem grit his teeth and felt his eyes water heavily. Tears of anger? Frustration? He didn't know.
The tablet made a soft ping and he glanced down at it, seeing a tiny message box pop up at the bottom.
Device3: if the tablet locks, the password is 0909234.
"Thanks, robot," Atem said sourly, tapping on the message and writing back an angry obscenity.
He watched his own message pop up and was mildly pleased to see that this tablet had a name.
Gemini_tablet: you're fucking ugly and you have no feelings.
Satisfied, Atem tapped on the web browsing app and contemplated searching Yugi's name. Did he even want to know how well Yugi was doing without him?
Sitting at his desk, Kaiba heard his phone vibrate softly across his desk and he turned his attention towards it, feeling pleased. He hadn't expected an answer.
He picked up his phone and read the message, his spirits falling. An insult. What the fuck had he done to deserve be called 'fucking ugly'?
He sent a message back and set his phone down, going back to his work, thinking Atem was only acting like this because his physical age was 16.
Did that mean his mental age was also 16?
That was strange and unsettling to think about.
But he had no reason to believe that the doctor's estimates and lab tests were wrong.
"Oh, fuck," Kaiba pressed his face into his hands, feeling a headache coming on. Atem…was…younger than him! He was as old as Mokuba! And on top of that, he had kissed Atem in front of Mokuba! That was messed up to the highest degree!
Atem heard the tablet make a ping again and he tapped away from the internet, seeing another notification from 'Device 3'.
Device 3: relax. You'll be out of there soon. Don't take your anger out on me or you'll get what's coming to you.
Instantly guilty, Atem realized Device 3 was Kaiba, and he hastened to apologize.
Gemini_tablet: sorry! Thought you were automated message.
And to his relief, a reply from Kaiba appeared almost instantly.
Device 3: I'll rename this phone. In the meantime, try learning how to speak Japanese while your brain is malleable.
"My brain has always been malleable," Atem said indignantly, realizing that he probably didn't think in Japanese. How strange. Perhaps writing all those journal entries kept his memory of the Japanese language alive, but he never spoke it, so he had lost most of his pronunciation skills.
Gemini_tablet: I kept a journal, wrote in Japanese. Probably why I can write but cannot speak. Had no one to talk with. My brain is fine.
Kaiba read the message and briefly wondered what Atem had written about. It was probably some teenage angsty shit about how life sucked.
Device 3: Your brain…is 16 years old if the doctor's estimates are correct. YOU are 16! So we're not even on the same level anymore. You are a child experiencing mood swings. Go to sleep. It's your bedtime.
Shocked, Atem held the tablet away from his face with disdain. Sixteen?! This body was sixteen?!
He bent down and typed his response carefully, now struggling to write sentences that were more complicated.
Gemini_tablet: Okay, Kaiba. Just because this BODY is 16 does not mean I am 16 on the inside. My brain has always been malleable, that should not be a concern.
And Kaiba's reply was swift and vicious.
Device 3: Nope. Brain scan says you are 16. You are 16. Can't fake maturity in your own damn brain. Doctor's physical examination is to be trusted too.
Device 3: You are the same age as Mokuba. Hell, you might even be younger than him. When is your birthday?
Atem shut his eyes and pressed his forehead down on the tablet, a crushing weight sitting low in his chest. I-Impossible. This was…the worst!
He didn't want to be younger than everyone! He had grown and experienced all the same hardships as Yugi and his friends. It was supremely unfair!
Opening his eyes, Atem grit his teeth and ignored the low rumble of hunger in his stomach as he messily wrote Kaiba a response.
Gemini_tablet: SEND ME BACK! OR AGE ME UP SOMEHOW! This is horrifically embarrassing! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?! YOU SICK BASTARD
Kaiba's reply was frantic and rushed as well.
Device 3: YOU THINK I WANT YOU TO BE 16?! YOU ARE THE AGE YOU ARE AND I CANT FUCKING CHANGE THAT and AND people are trying to invent shit that will make them YOUNGER. NOT OLDER
The door to the room opened and Atem glanced up, his embarrassment rising as he caught the worried glance from the nurse.
"Would you like the food to be reheated?" she asked politely, and Atem shook his head stiffly.
"I'll eat." he said hastily, shoving the tablet aside and reaching for the bowl of rice wrapped in plastic. "Thank you."
The nurse gave him a funny look and bowed out of the room.
Atem unwrapped the bowl and ate slowly, trying to sort out his feelings. If he was 16, how much time had passed? How old was Yugi and everyone now?
After a few moments, the tablet pinged again and he glanced down at the message from Kaiba.
Device 3: SO YOU CAN SPEAK! GOOD! VERY GOOD!
Setting the bowl aside, Atem texted back quickly, glancing at the time and realizing it was almost midnight.
Gemini_tablet: I'm not mute, of course I can speak.
Device 3: no, the nurse reported you said, "I will eat, thank you." Good on you. Keep talking and then maybe we can have a real conversation.
Bristling at this, Atem decided to ignore Kaiba for the moment while he finished his meal. If he kept eating at odd times of the night, he would never get better.
Author's note:
OMG Atem is 16 kek. Am I evil or what.
Next chapter coming soon! Please let me know your thoughts!
Thank you ylje for your edits! You are a heavensent angel
(kisses)
- Ugli