The ceremony is over, and then he knows.
Maybe if he doesn't say it, he can forget for a little while.
No.
No, that is a stupid thing to think. He knows better. He is not a child.
He's still crying, but he doesn't mind it much. He isn't ashamed. He blinks, tries to blink the tears away, and it almost works. He does it again, and it's a little better.
The footsteps are not surprising, but they are louder than he would have expected. Are they still in the cavern? His soul room? Have they gone somewhere else entirely, somewhere separate from time and space and all things with meaning?
He smiles a wry little smile. It doesn't matter.
He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. This is not the time to hide, not the place. He opens them and turns around to the sound of his own name.
"Yugi."
He starts to smile again, but the timing isn't right.
"Other me."
Even that isn't true any more, but he will hold it tight until the very last moment. Two halves of the same whole in every way that matters, and every way that does not.
"What are you doing here?"
Where? It doesn't matter. Away, for a while. The fact that they are together, wherever, means that it isn't over yet.
Just another moment.
He sobs once, turning away. It is not the beginning of more tears; merely the last gasp of a realization. His friend's face is creased in concern and he reaches out, but they are a little too far apart for it to make a difference.
When he speaks, his voice is even.
"You have to go, don't you?"
There is no response.
It was a rhetorical question.
"I know. It's okay. This is what we've been fighting for, right? This is what everything has been about, and now you get to go back where you belong."
Because that place you belong, it has never been here.
"I'm happy for you. I'm proud of you."
It takes a long time for the next words to come. They're hard to hear, and it looks like they are hard to say.
"Thank you."
Oh…
"You will never know how much you've… How much I wish there was another way for this story to end. If you don't remember anything else, just remember that I'll—"
"I love you."
There is a word or so of overlap, but he does not tremble or falter. The other is too startled, too uncertain to say anything, do anything. It cannot be much of a surprise, not really, but saying, hearing the words out loud is different from simply knowing. Now it is real.
Now, it is real.
He is not sure what he wants to happen next.
"Yugi, I—"
"Wait! Wait," he says, and it's a cruel thing, but what was he expecting? "I know"? "Thank you"? "You're very special to me"? He knows that. "We could have been something amazing"? He can't stand to hear it, doesn't want to.
"I love you, too"?
That would be even worse.
He knows what will come now, inevitably.
"Please don't say anything." He laughs, because what else is there to do? "This is silly. You're leaving, I know. I…I don't want to stop you."
Now his eyes are downcast, because he does not want to see that his other self is pitying him, or that his heart is breaking, or that he is angry. He cannot afford to be distracted. He is making this up as he goes, but he has been waiting to do it for a long time.
"No… More than anything, I want you to stay with me forever." He shakes a little; there is a small noise of sorrow, a broken grunt as the other him tries to offer solace but remembers that this is not the time.
He tries to smile before he speaks again. The shape of his mouth will color the words that come out.
"But don't worry. I'll always remember you, and everything we've been through together." The smile comes easily as he travels back in time for a second. "I'm sorry. It…it's okay. This is the way things are."
He does look up then, sees the tenderness that his partner has learned and the ferocity he has learned to control, the uncertainty as their connection has begun to break and he does not know as much as he has come to take for granted.
He shakes his head, still smiling.
"I just… I know I would've regretted it if I hadn't said anything before you went."
The silence is paralyzing. He is not waiting for anything in particular; this will end in its time. He does not want to know when. It is not up to him.
Then, his other self smiles too, that same understanding smile he has offered so many times before. It means the same thing now that it did back then: You've done well.
He knows it to be true.
In the dark, there is a slow dance that leads to a single kiss, and it is the most painful thing he has ever done.
The door is open.
There are tears in his wide eyes. How could there not be?
He smiles.
"I hope you find happiness, wherever you're going."
The most important words are the ones he cannot bring himself to say, but they both hear them. The final touches on a snapping thread.
Goodbye.
And thank you.