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Author's Note: Nothing like an old trip back into fanfiction, is there? This is from the fiction that inspired me to make a new fanfiction account, and give it a shot, a fiction by the name of 'Niko Niko' by Butterfly in a Hurricane. I thought I'd give my own personal spin on it, since about three paragraphs in I had my own opinions of how I would write the story. This is not me trying to belittle the original, as it is very enjoyable, just me using a good format to get my own idea across.

Title Notes: The title Lächeln is the German word for smile, which seems a bit of an odd choice. Initially I was searching out the Ancient Egyptian word for smile, but apparently we don't know it. Although, the list of Eygptian words we do know is called the Beinlich List, which we are allowed to search for using a german translation. Therefore, I chose Lächeln as the title.

Songscape: None in particular.

Lächeln

I swear he has a smile for every occasion. It's very easy not to notice, if only because it is just so difficult to notice when a person is almost always smiling.

He's got one like a breeze. Wears it out into the world everyday, that one you notice straight away, because it's everywhere. It's just how he faces each day, smiling that way. Then, if it goes, you realize it was always there, but until then you didn't pay it heed; just like a breeze. As soon as it's gone, you're confused for a bit, why you feel funny, why he doesn't look quite as he did before. Of course it's gone when he's surprised, or when he's angry, but otherwise, it's always there. I remember staring heedlessly once when it wasn't, puzzled by his face, because something was off. It fully took me four minutes to realize it was his smile that was off.

Why aren't you smiling?

Smiling?

He was just as confused as I was, but simply because he never registered that he smiled so often. He wasn't feeling down, it was just that this day was just one day when he didn't have a particular reason to smile, and that meant he found a reason every other day. More puzzling than before then; to smile because you're happy, so much, so often, puzzling. I wondered what made this day a non-smiling day, if almost every day had something bright inside it. I was suddenly envious, jealous, curious, competitive really; I wanted to know what he saw each day that I couldn't, what he saw to make him smile.

That was his every-day smile, he owns others though. I know which one makes me feel desperate, it's the small one, the weak one, the this-is-the –lesser-evil one. It makes me anxious, and nervous and my stomach swallows itself, because this smile usually means he's going to sacrifice himself somehow. Or that, he accepts we tried our best, but he's okay with it, because we tried. Or even the one that can invite others to cry, and represents a spot of sunshine cheering someone. In fact, it's just his martyr smile. It's one thing to sacrifice yourself, I should know, but to reassure someone when you do it, I'm not sure I could. Surely then a person deserves some self-pity for themselves?

We're going to blame ourselves anyway, no matter how hard you smile.

I remember fumbling with my thoughts when I was knocked from the seal of Orichalcos, staring at him, and there he wore it, just a small smile of sacrifice. Smiling, it's okay, when it wasn't. Yet, that smile isn't a lie, because all he means by it, is friendship, trying to keep you happy, and that's what friends do. It still scares me; what happens when I see that smile, is Yugi is going to be hurt. I have grown to fear it, because when he wears it, I cannot stop it.

It only needs one of us,

And I need both of us.

People say that I smirk rather than smile, but I'm not so good at smiling, after all, I find little reason to practice in my own soul room, or within the puzzle. I smirk more with him around, because it's only an awkward smile back, and I think he recognizes the difference between a proud smirk, and a tricky twist of my face to show I'm glad to have company. I guess I learnt to give smiles after the kingdom was over, as well as names.

Yami,

That's when I noticed a different smile. A thank you smile; it had never occurred to me that he had never offered such a thing. I had done things for him, and he had been grateful for my help, and yet only now, did I feel as if I was being thanked. For something as little as a half-name? It puzzled me, corrupted my thoughts with the grace of its mystery. I could not imagine why, even after saving his friends, or rescuing him from danger, that even after that, he found a better reason to thank me now.

That was not the end of the thank you smiles. Each time I received one, I became more and more puzzled by its source. As with his everyday smile, at first I did not understand why he offered it. It took many conversations, and I did not ask, I never have, but I have faith I know why. With the former, he smiles because he finds something joyful in being alive, regardless of circumstances, and the latter, because I gave him part of myself. Yami was the closest thing I had to a name, at that moment, and he was glad of it, grateful enough to thank me.

I was given many smiles in my time talking to him. I met him like a stray animal, sniffing warily, backing away, circling quietly, which is why he did not know me at first, there was always the fear he would wrench the puzzle from his neck, and cast it to pieces. Me to pieces. So, I edged closer. It was odd to be welcomed without fear, and even when he chose to fear, uncertain of what I would do, he didn't take away the puzzle, and he didn't throw me away. I could live a thousand times and never deserve him. Our subsequent meetings still lived on in that vein; him setting out his offering of companionship, and my wary approach. Then, I gave him my name, and he thanked me for it. I was hungry for smiles of thanks, and company, he knew what to feed my heart.

Simple words during the day, short talk, small and growing smaller yet, and I devoured the conversation hungrily. I had hoped – for my pride, my desperate pride – that he did not notice my growing want to be with someone, with him, together. Company that could accept a disembodied spirit. One night, he sat up in bed under the lamplight, and opened a large book, showing me a bright photograph of the desert, exploding upwards in a word of stonework that he said marveled people even today. I was quiet. Gazing across the splash of orange, and the hazy blue of heat.

They are not bright enough; they were stars in the sands… I whispered. Astounded at the image in the way remembering a loved one entraps you, circles you. Curled fingers about each other, the impression of holding hands. Together.

Yugi's fingers turned a page, a rustle of sand in the air, and another beautiful picture, this one drawn. An artist's impression of the pyramids.

Is that better?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you was a pale word from me, but my face was pressed into the book, staring over his shoulder, leaning in closer as if I could fall into the picture. Without thinking my hand brushed over the page, then slipped in, through the book. I do not fall through things when I know I won't, but I think I forgot for a time that I could not slip inside the picture. Withdrawing my hand, I considered asking him to put the book away. Instead, he turned the page again.

A sarcophagus, statues, the masks of kings past, gods and goddesses, a snake-like river of marble.

He caught my hand then, the impression of warmth with no physical reason to feel it. Smiled at me. Together smile. Here we are together. This is meant to be, a togetherness to make the corners of the universe shake, and the recesses of my soul shiver. A smile of that.

We talked often then, quiet words shared in the darkness and light of our hearts. Rarely a night would go by without quiet words, sometimes thoughtful, and sometimes playful. Always a highlight for me. Even as he drew me into his circle of friends, made it clear I was welcome alongside the others, I scurried back to him. He had passed whatever test I had chosen to put forth with acceptance, and it would be a long time before the others could make me as at ease as he does. If they ever have, or ever will. There is something about speaking thought to thought that seems to bring out closeness.

That is his together smile, the one he wears when we speak together alone. Together, alone, the words cannot co-exist peacefully when he has that expression.

Of course, his smiles are not always so benevolent to me. He can be playful, mischievous, trickful.

This is where you take over~!

This isn't a duel!

Even when I know he's planning something that will leave me scrambling to keep up with what's going on, made obvious by that careful little smile on his face, I let him. Surprises are not welcome to me, when an opponent's trap card flips up to ruin my perfect victory, but those are at my expense. I pay a price of pride, but I let him have it. His games are always for my advantage, and I hate to lose at any game. I thought I was being generous, letting him believe he had truly tricked me, but I suspect he knows I know. I suspect he deliberately lets me have a chance to refuse.

There are some smiles I fight with my every breath not to see anymore. Tough love, they call it. Tough, yes, he has toughness in him, and I rebel from it being turned against me. It is not as though we do not argue, for everyone can argue, but hurt him? No, not deliberately, not on a calm mind. He lacks that feeling, able to hurt me, but only to help me. Tough love. I hate it, run from it, cower, but give him what he wants from it. Then, he smiles at me, and he means to say that he's sorry he hurt me, but he is glad to have helped me. He has always had a ruthlessness I did not have, that being the ability to willingly, openly, and with full knowledge hurt a loved one. I knew how to hurt myself, easily, or how to hurt others, but a loved one? I learnt it first hand from him.

Tough love, is an easy way to put it. It doesn't feel very loving.

A winner doesn't belong on his knees,

He has a smile when he's giving his everything into something. That one is beautiful, passionate, filled with life and the desire to live it as much as possible. He wore it then, and in that is my belief we can belong separately, for time. His smiles belong to other people, they are gifts that he gives away, but that smile is his smile. An everything smile. It is for him, and it has to be beautiful, simply because of that. I wish I could say that smile is my favourite, the smile where his happiness is not dependant on others, and doesn't ebb and rise with other people. Where, he does not smile because I gave him my name. I wish very deeply that I could be a person who is pleased at happiness, even if they have nothing to do with it. It is true, I am pleased at any happiness, but I prefer the smiles I conjured.

It is one thing to know a person is happy, and quite another to know they are happy because of you. My favourite smile of his is not his accepting smile, his breezy smile, his tolerant smile, his playful smile, his reassuring smile, his own smile. I am not sure what is my favourite smile – I do not believe I have seen the smile I love the most.

The other me,

That is until the last one. The one that says what I myself said I did not feel. I'm happy you're happy even if I am not part of that. The last look of goodbye, not one word to hold me back, no inch of regret, and true joy at what was shared, fading into pleasure I should have my own happiness; he had more than enough happiness for the both of us, even with his own sorrow. I have lived three times, once in my own time, once in his time, and once inside myself and now I am to live one more time – I had no idea the afterlife came in so many tiny pieces – and I could still live a thousand times more and still, still never deserve him.

He didn't say goodbye, not once. He didn't want to say goodbye. In some tongues there are two words for goodbye, one when you mean forever, and one where you mean for now, but in his tongue there is only one word for goodbye. I didn't say goodbye either; I didn't want to be misunderstood.

There is still something so fascinating about an academy for a card game. I expect interesting stories, and interesting smiles.

Partner,

May your quills stay sharp.