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: Getting Back In Touch
Characters: Saiou, Edo
Word Count: 1,500||Status: One-shot
Genre: Friendship||Rated: G
Challenge: Diversity Challenge: section C, #40: write a fluffy piece
Summary: [one-shot, Diversity Challenge, Saiou & Edo] After returning from Dark World, Edo drops in on his best friend.
Edo approached the door with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. He wanted very little more than to see his best friend again, after months of wondering if that would ever happen.
He would've liked to know if Ryou would somehow return as the rest of them had, but other than that, nothing other than meeting Saiou even made his list of personal desires. He didn't even care that much for returning to the Pro Leagues. Somehow, after fighting to the death more than once, they didn't have the spark they once had anyway.
Whoever had left the room last hadn't closed the door all the way. Edo paused just outside of it, wondering if he'd come at a bad time and Saiou had drifted off for a nap. He'd said for Edo to come over as soon as he could, but Saiou still tired easily these days. Edo wouldn't have been at all surprised to find him asleep.
"Come in, Edo." Saiou's familiar voice came from inside, and Edo blinked at once. It was just like the old days, when Saiou had always known when he'd come to see him.
"I thought you lost your powers," Edo said as he pushed the door open and entered.
Saiou sat in a wingback chair, positioned to give a view of the outdoors. He didn't look up as Edo came over and settled into the other chair, but Edo could still see a small smile on his lips.
"I did. But look." He flicked one hand toward the window and Edo looked out. His own lips quirked to see the parking lot for the hospital spread out beneath them. Saiou had a clear view of anyone who arrived there.
Edo settled back into the chair, trying to wrap his mind more completely around the fact he was actually there with Saiou, in a world of blue skies and duels that did not bring death for the loser. Even after having been back for two days, he still couldn't completely rest when he slept at night.
"How have you been?" Saiou asked after a few quiet moments. There wasn't so much tension between them as there was not knowing exactly what to say to one another. It had been like this ever since Juudai defeated the Light of Ruin: awkwardness only lessened when they were too worn out to think about what they said or did around one another.
"I died." Edo spoke without thinking about it, and regretted it a heartbeat later as Saiou winced. "I…it didn't stick?" How did anyone talk about this?
Saiou's eyes darted toward him. "I noticed."
It took a moment for that to sink in and Edo found himself laughing. It wasn't a laugh of merriment, but he didn't know what else to call it. He shook his head, not even bothering to try to get himself under control for the moment. Only Saiou could do this to him, and he seldom even tried to. Laughter hadn't ever been a large part of their lives.
Maybe it was a good thing that could change now. They both had the future to look forward to, but without the curse of knowing what would be. They could choose it for themselves.
Slowly both of them brought themselves under control. Edo seldom fidgeted; his self-control was too much for that. But now he found himself drawing a tiny abstract design on the chair-arm.
For months now every thought on his mind had been of survival, of trying to find out what happened to Juudai and his friends, and of how to get back home. Now that he was home, nothing seemed to slot back into place the way he'd somewhat imagined that it would.
"What happened, Edo? All Mizuchi and I have known was that you went to help them when the school vanished, and that same night, you and Juudai and his friends disappeared as well," Saiou said. Edo could see lines of worry visible in the set of his lips and wished he could do something to fix those.
"Johan Andersen sacrificed himself to get everyone else back from that first world. Juudai decided it was all his fault because the one who took them there was a spirit he knew from when he was younger, Yubel. So when the chance came to go back and find Johan, Juudai took it." Edo summed up what he knew of the situation, then how he and Ryou had been caught up in the gate energies unleashed, and found themselves in that dark world.
The more he spoke about it, the more he could feel something inside of himself easing up, a small knot of pain and confusion that he hadn't even known was there in the first place. He didn't want to stop. He told of how he and Ryou found out about Juudai and his rampage and how they'd freed a prison's worth of warriors to help them, and meeting up with O'Brien in the process.
"I wish I could've been there with you," Saiou said, his voice low and compassionate. "I could've helped."
Edo shook his head, eyes widening. "No. That's…" He didn't even know how to express what he thought, only that such a world was nowhere he wanted to see Saiou.
Saiou looked at him, one eyebrow arching upward. "Edo?"
Edo shook his head harder. "It was hard enough with us being there." Ryou hadn't ever wanted Edo to lend him a hand for anything, even when he pushed himself too hard and needed help in some way. Edo didn't think he could've handled Saiou there as well, given how his friend sometimes needed help simply to stand and rise, with his body still recovering from having been possessed by the Light for so long.
Not to mention that the land they'd been in had been steeped in the power of darkness. Exactly how that would've affected Saiou, with whatever remnants of the Light he had in him, Edo didn't know and wasn't certain he wanted to know.
He grasped for other words, words that he hoped would say what he wanted them to. "We had to barter for food if we couldn't find it for ourselves, and the longer we were there, the harder finding anything to trade was. And the harder it was to find food to trade for. Ryou and I ended up finding an old mansion to live in, but it didn't have any proper heat and we had to cook what we did get hold of over an open fire." And needless to say, neither of them were the best cooks.
"Before we found that, though, we traveled a lot, and we had to sleep wherever we could." Caves, if they were lucky. They weren't always. There had been one week where there hadn't been any caves available, nor any habitable ruins, much less any villages where someone could be persuaded to part with a little space before their fire.
He told all of that to Saiou, who listened intently. And then smiled, an expression Edo could not quite understand even as he saw it.
"Do you think I'd not put up with all of that to help you, Edo? You, who nearly lost everything once before to help me? No amount of hardship would mean anything if I could help you." He released a faint sigh. "But what's done is done."
With Edo's coloring, it was very easy to tell if he blushed, no matter how faint it might be. That was one of the reasons he'd fought to maintain such control over his emotions, so that his reactions wouldn't give him away. It gave him an advantage in duels if his opponent couldn't guess what he was thinking to any extent.
But now, a faint line of red crept up his cheeks and he didn't even bother to hide it. He should've known. Saiou always had some way of surprising him. When he'd thought of how best to pay Juudai back for rescuing Saiou when he couldn't, and how to do what he could to keep Saiou safe after this, he'd never considered that perhaps Saiou had his own opinion on the matter.
He didn't know what else to say for a few moments, and found refuge in the sarcasm that had always served him so well. "If that's the case, then the next time I'm off in another world of death and destruction, I'll make certain to invite you along. You'd probably be better company than Hell Kaiser was anyway."
Saiou chuckled at that. "I would be honored to go with you to any world, Edo."
Edo knew there was so much else that he hadn't yet said that he wanted to say, but for now that could wait. He thought he could sleep in peace that night, and soon he would start to get everything else put back together again at last.
Including his friendship with Saiou.
The End