So, this is my first Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic. Yay -waves flag- !!
Anyway, this was a total bitch to type out even though it took me the span of a few weeks (kept forgetting about it) and I was using a new laptop too and since I'm, like, technology retarded, I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out any of the damn features -_-" Excuses, excuses...
Anywho, I'm kind of nervous about this (as in, spazzy, nail biting, can-barely-type-anymore-I'm-so-nervous) mostly because of characterization. See, I don't really like the dub personalities very much- too bland, too boring- but I've never been able to find a good sub (coughYOUTUBEYOUBASTARDcough) and I've only read three of the manga (two from season 0 and 1 from the Millennium World) so I'm pretty sure I'm way off with the Other Yugi's sense of humor and Anzu's relative awesomeness and Yugi's respective inner strengths and weakness'.
What I'm saying is CONCRIT WOULD BE NICE.
Why the hell does FF's formatting suck so hard?
Please please please R&R!
The Blues and Reds of Life
The grand, ornate doors to the afterlife shut with a resounding crack, sealing the Pharaoh Atemu away forever, and, before Yugi even had a chance to realize that, this time, the Pharaoh –Atemu- was never coming back the tomb began to cave in. He followed his friends unthinkingly, sprinting away from the last place he would ever see Atemu, avoiding the falling rocks and sand, and ignoring the crashes and screams of fear.
When he collapsed outside, panting and still numb, he laid back on the hot sand, letting the Egyptian sun burn his skin, trying to catch his breath. He stared up at the brilliant blue, endless sky, ignoring the stitch in his side and the ache in his heart and the lack of worried Pharaoh in his head.
"Sometimes the end of one adventure is just the start of something new…"
'I vaguely recall hearing something like that in one of your movies. Really, aibou, where is your mind?'
Everyone – excluding Kaiba, who was too busy checking to see if Mokuba was hurt (not that he would've otherwise) – uttered appreciative murmurs and nodded. Jonouchi was panting and leaning back against a fallen boulder with his head in his hands and Honda stood beside him with his hands buried in his pockets, looking exhausted and confused. Yugi tilted his head back as far as it would go in the golden sand and saw Anzu on her knees with a curiously shocked and hurt look on her pretty face. Bakura was kneeling next to her with one hand rubbing her shoulder comfortingly and the other clutching at his chest as though his heart hurt… or he expected to feel something. Grandpa was still standing, wheezing and looking delighted, as though he has just had the time of his life.
'The sand will take forever to wash out of your hair.'
Yugi turned his face back up to the sky –clear blue and endless- and for a moment he thought he saw a smirk, the glint of red, and a flash of gold.
If he just stayed out in the sun a little while longer, he knew he could convince himself that this was just a result of the impending heat stroke.
It was kind of stupid, really. Even since returning from Egypt, Yugi simply could not figure out what in he still felt for the Pharaoh –Atemu-. He had been a part of him and it made sense for them to be together. Just-
Just together. It didn't have to be anything more and Yugi wasn't sure he even wanted it to be anything more, anyway, but it certainly couldn't be anything less-
Yugi hugged his knees tighter to his chest, staring blankly at the textbook he was supposed to be studying. The headboard of his bed dug painfully into his shoulder blades.
Atemu always knew. He knew what his opponents thoughts were… what Yugi was thinking, what Yugi felt about something… He just never knew about himself. He had forgotten his past (until a stupid, stupid game had reminded him) and he didn't much care about his own feelings as long as Yugi was happy.
The problem with that was, after 2 years of having Atemu in his head, telling him who he was, laying down the path so perfectly clear, Yugi realized that who he thought he was and who Atemu thought he was were completely different things. There was the Oth- Atemu and there was Yugi and how could one half be a whole on its own?
Yugi sighed and shifted into a slightly more comfortable spot on the wooden headboard, aware of an impending neck ache. He absentmindedly picked up his textbook to try and read it, before setting it back down on the mattress, quietly resigned to the fact that he definitely wouldn't get his homework done for the night. It was time to just give up on it.
Time to just give up.
'Please, aibou, just talk to me. What's wrong?'
English was never an easy subject for Yugi but when they were assigned to write a fairytale, his pen had never moved faster before in his life.
Once upon a time there was a boy who heard a voice in his head. The voice lived in a magical item that the boy wore around his neck, gold and forged long ago in a mysterious land.
Together, the boy and the voice- who was actually a cursed king- and their friends fought evil and saved the world many times.
Then, after a long, fearful battle with the very creature of darkness, the ancient king left. And the boy stayed and lived out the rest of his days.
The end.
Don't be so cynical, aibou.
"I think I'm going a little crazy," Yugi confided in Anzu, swirling the ice in his glass around and around with the straw.
She looked up from her task of drowning her French fries in ketchup, looking rather confused for a moment. Then her pretty blue- the brilliant blue and endless sky- eyes widened with understanding and pity before she carefully set the ketchup bottle down.
He avoided her eyes and abandoned his straw and ice, instead, plucking a napkin out of the metallic container. Slowly, methodically, he began to shred it, careful to make all the crooked strips land in a neat pile.
"What makes you say that?" Anzu asked, gently.
He didn't answer her for a moment, wondering what had possessed him to even open his mouth and start this conversation. But Anzu wouldn't judge him. She definitely wouldn't understand, but she still wouldn't judge him. He just…needed to talk. Talk to someone that wasn't an imaginary voice in his head.
"I still hear his voice sometimes…" He didn't look up from his napkin-snow, studying it intensely and ripping it into smaller and smaller pieces.
Anzu was quiet for a while, during which time he tried not to worry, tried not to assume she was going to drag him to the doctor.
"It's ok. Sometimes, I wish I could…"
Yugi blinked and stopped destroying the napkin, his hands hovering uncertainly over the table, feeling horrifically selfish. It had always been hard for him to remember that his Other –the pharaoh, Atemu- had been friends with his friends too. Anzu had even been pretty sure that she was in love with him. He hadn't even thought that there might be other people who were hurting.
Anzu saw his stricken expression and misinterpreted it, her blue –a pharaoh's cape, a final smile, and an endless, perfect sky- eyes widening with sincerity as she rushed to explain, "It's not that – I don't – I – You – He's not -"
He cut her off gently, dropping the remains of his napkin, taking one of her soft hands in both of his, "It's ok."
She calmed down a little and even put her other hand on top of his, smiling a little and looking ashamed.
He pulled away first to steal some of her fries. She giggled, trying to swat his hands away, and the moment was lost
It felt nice to make someone alive laugh.
"For the record," Anzu said conversationally as they walked home from school a few days later, both having declined an invitation to go to the arcade with Jonouchi and Honda, "I don't think you're crazy."
He tilted his head, frowning questioningly, "Hmm?"
"I think it's pretty understandable for you to still hear his voice," She explained, tugging at her mandatory bright pink uniform blazer, "I mean, he was part of you too. It's like those 'phantom limb' things, you know? You lose a body part but your brain still thinks you have it so you still feel it… Except this time it's a voice, not an arm…" She trailed off a little when she noticed his bewildered expression.
He stared at her, blinking, before bursting into peals of laughter. The force of his laughter was so strong he had to stop walking, doubling over and nearly crying with mirth. Anzu hovered anxiously over him.
A phantom voice.
A ghost voice.
A spirit voice.
It was like he'd never even left.
Of course not. I'm always here with you.
"Please, why won't you talk to me anymore?"
'Because you're dead'
"That's never stopped you from speaking from me before."
'But now you're really dead and I don't understand why you're still here!"
"Aibou… I would leave if you wanted me to…"
'But who am I without you?'
"You're you"
'But you're a part of me.'
History class had always been Yugi's second favorite class (right behind math) but, ironically, they'd recently begun studying Ancient Egypt. For a variety of reasons, Yugi really didn't want or need to pay attention (the least of which being that he had actually spent multiple days there).
Usually to pass the time while the teacher lectured, Yugi would study his fellow students. He's learned several habits and quirks (Miho liked to do origami, Anzu bit off her split ends when she was especially bored, and Kyuzami probably played the piano if the music sheets he wrote were anything to go by).
During one particularly sunny day Yugi was sketching a on the back of his worksheet. His mind was mercifully fuzzy and from boredom until he noticed exactly what he'd unconsciously drawn and his chest and stomach throbbed and stung weirdly.
An upside down triangle. With an eye in the center of it.
His throat was curiously tight as he snatched up his eraser, determined to get rid of the image as soon as possible, nearly ripping his paper in the process. He looked up, ready for distraction, brushing ridiculously blond hair out of his burning eyes.
Why wouldn't that awful tugging in his chest, in his heart, go away? Why did it seem directly connected to his tear ducts and lungs? Oh, it hurt to breathe, like trying to move your chest when a thousand bricks were crushing you, and he was so lucky he didn't have a table partner because he was pretty sure he had just whimpered-
Anzu's chocolate brown hair had red tints in it when the sun shined on it just the right way.
Suddenly, Yugi could breathe again.
But he still wanted to cry.
"Why don't you play Duel Monsters anymore?"
'Because something will bad will happen. And I'll wish I were you again.
The false voice stayed silent for once.
Yugi had a very strange relationship with Ryou Bakura, stranger, still, since Egypt. They comforted each other without meaning to and they empathized with each other about nearly everything but it was an unspoken agreement that they never spoke of their biggest problem together.
3 weeks and 4 days after Egypt and the sealing away of the Pharaoh, Yugi walked into the school bathroom only to hear muffled sobbing coming from one of the stalls. The little whimpers and sniffles and pathetic gasps were all too distinct and Yugi could recognize those scuffy, beat-up sneakers anywhere.
Yugi froze, debating whether he should go and try to comfort Bakura (he was really the only one who could ever actually understand) or if he should just leave.
Just how well had Bakura and the Spirit of the Millennium Ring known each other? Did Bakura hear the thief's voice in the back of his head, muttering and whispering and laughing? Was Bakura lonely? Or was he terrified that he would return, as he always had before? Or was he terrified that he would return, as he always had before?
Yugi turned on his heel and left.
The Oth-Atemu had always been the brave one but he was dead now.
"Just because I'm dead doesn't mean you have to keep pointing it out."
'Go away.'
"No."
'Why not?'
'You don't want me to."
Atemu had once told him- in the confines of his mind where no one could ever hear- that he had once thought himself in love with Anzu.
But then he realized that it was just Yugi's body reacting to her and he was just confusing them.
It was actually quite easy to do that. Confuse them. They were so different but, according to Ishizu, once upon a time they were both parts of the same person and then torn apart.
Thousands of years later and they were once again in the same body.
But it wasn't really right, Yugi admitted to himself, sitting on his bed and doodling absentmindedly again.
They had once been two parts of one. But Atemu and Yugi had been separated and time had distorted their edges until Yugi and the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle didn't fit perfectly together anymore.
The teenager bit his lower lip thoughtfully, shading in his little elephant sketch, shifting the pillow behind his back for extra comfort.
The Pharaoh Atemu had been dead for a very long time. The Spirit Atemu was finally resting too. And now it was Yugi's turn to finally live.
To just finally be Yugi.
He frowned, tapping his pencil.
Just how was he supposed to do that?
Anzu had been his friend for years. Admittedly, she hadn't always been a very good friend but, even when he was shunned by the entire school for being freaky and weird, she would always come back.
She was beautiful and funny and tough and he had been convinced that he was in love with her. It was why, even though she used to be mean to him sometimes and when they were younger she used him to play pranks on to look cooler in front of her friends, he always welcomed her back with open arms and almost complete trust.
The brunette girl grabbed his hand, nearly smacking him in the face with an overflowing shopping bag, and dragged him over to another rack of on-sale clothes, nearly squealing with joy. She flung his hand away from her, rapidly shifting through blouses. Yugi stumbled a little from the abrupt release. Hordes of people swarmed around him, nearly ripping each other apart for the best deal, giving him an unpleasant claustrophobic sensation.
Anzu knew he didn't like crowds. But she still made him go because "he was going to forget how to speak if he kept avoiding people like this."
For a while he'd almost missed this and her bossy, pushy nature. He was quite glad she'd put his whole perspective back into place. When he'd voiced his gratitude, she'd only snorted, never taking her eyes off of the red wedges across the room, and promised to buy him a burger.
He'd laughed, satisfied, and, cleverly using his height, weaved his way through the masses of people to snatch up the last pair of shoes in her size.
They were a nice shade of red.
'Aibou'
Atemu was dead. Like he was meant to be.
The Other Yugi was dead.
His chest didn't hurt so much when he thought he heard a whisper of the old endearment. It didn't ache and reach so painfully anymore.
Until he felt the guilt eating at the lining of his stomach.
Yugi's relationship with Jou had always been sturdy every since they became friends (of course their bully-victim relationship before that had always been rather sturdy too, always reliable) and the blond often took it upon himself to make sure Yugi had some fun every once in a while. Jou could also be very stubborn when he wanted to and would forcibly drag Yugi if the spiky haired boy protested.
Which was why Yugi didn't resist when he blond dragged him to the arcade to play some games even though the very idea of it made his stomach uneasy.
He shot virtual monsters with frightening precision for about a quarter of an hour, trying to block out the obnoxious lights and loud yelling that came from all sides.
"Left, Yugi! Left!" Jou cried excitedly, steadying his own plastic rifle and shooting at the 3 or so zombies creeping up on the side of the screen.
Yugi ignored his growing headache and grinned, finding Jonouchi's enthusiasm rather catching. He aimed and took out 2 in as many seconds.
"Got them!" He cried happily.
"You're never gonna beat his high score," Honda said smugly. Jou growled but was unable to retaliate, too preoccupied by the growing number of zombies.
Yugi's grin widened when the rundown warehouse scene abruptly faded to black and "GAME OVER" flashed across the screen in neon colors. Jou threw down his gun in exchange for punching Honda, who smacked him back, and soon it became an all out wrestling match.
Yugi, on the other hand, just smiled. He'd made a new high score again and it felt amazing to win.
Ryou and Anzu had come over to study but, having grown quickly bored of that, watched a movie instead.
There had been a brief dispute. Yugi had wanted to watch an action film, Ryou wanted horror, and Anzu wanted comedy.
They'd settled for a drama about a drug dealer and ate popcorn and candy, making frequent comments and throwing wrappers at each other when they got too loud.
Yugi laughed hard enough to cry.
It had been fun night, all-in-all.
Once again, Yugi and Anzu opted to walk home instead of hitting the arcade with Jou and Honda. The day was warm though and it was an impossible temptation to just stop and sit in the grass. However, Anzu had allergies in the spring so they did the next best thing and sat on the concrete steps in front of the gameshop.
They chatted easily and Yugi looked at her, smiling. She grinned back and the light glittered off her teeth and shimmered in her hair. A bubble of warmth exploded in his belly, spreading up to his chest and throat.
He leaned in and kissed her on the check quickly. Blushing, he leaned away and muttered apologies, hunching in on himself, though he found it very hard to feel bad about it. The feeling of Anzu's silky cheek had been amazing and he still felt the tingle in his lips. When he chanced a glance at the brunette girl she didn't look overly shocked or horrified. In fact, she looked rather ecstatic.
Then her lips were in his and it was really warm and her lips were kind of dry and soft. Overall, it was really very nice and even after they pulled away, he kept his eyes closed, savoring the feeling and resisting a giggle.
He looked at her, shyly, "I really like you."
She laughed a little, "I like you too."
The Other Me would be proud right now.
He smiled and leaned back to look at the sky, then back into her twinkling eyes. They were both blue –clear blue and endless- and in their depths all he saw were infinite possibilities.
I would have to say that the biggest problem with me is that I'm in love with tendershipping and puzzleshipping, yet I can never seem to write them. Instead I come out with IMPLIED puzzleshipping and IMPLIED CONTACT between Ryou Bakura and the Spirit of the Millennium Ring. I've written HEARTSHIPPINGbefore I could even attempt tendershipping. How do you think that makes me feel?!? -cries-
Another problem I have with this is that it features significantly less Ryou Bakura than I would like :(
Seriously though. Do you think this flows right? Does it show Yugi's progression from grief to acceptance? It definiteley wasn't suppose to be Yugi Sad, Yugi Happy Because He In Love With Pretty Lady Now.
Is it weird that the concept of him still hearing the Pharaoh in his head even after he left makes perfect sense to me?
Please review!?