Disclaimer:  Do I really need to mention they're not mine?  I mean, if I actually owned these characters, I'd be using my ideas for some profit…and I'd totally screw them up so much more than the original owner.  ;)

And also, the song itself was done by 3 Doors Down and is called Be Like That.  I know they took it from someone else and redid it, but I'm giving them credit since it was their version that inspired me.

Synopsis:  Just each character musing.  The musings are tied into the song lyrics each has been given.  Each character gets two lyrics to the song, including the two stanzas and the first singing of the chorus.  Since the rest of the song is the chorus repeating itself, that won't really be need (IMO).  And if ya don't like it, review and I'll ignore ya for the most part…kidding, I will ignore you completely…;)

Side Notes:  My first EVER song fiction (if some of you are looking at my status and going, erm, isn't this your first EVER fiction, I stick my tounge at you and say this is my registered ID for Anime fiction).  I've actually done a fiction with poetry before, so hopefully this'll turn out pretty well (although poetry and music are different yet the same in such weird ways).  Enjoy the fiction!

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He spent his whole life being too young,

To live the life that's in his dreams

I'm waiting by the phone for the call I know is coming.  Téa was asking me all day how I was feeling.  She has this way of sensing when a friend is in distress, and any other day I would be grateful for her concern.  But not today.  I don't think I could explain to her.

I am perfection; I am the typical hero who overcame his shortcomings (stupid self humor making puns at my height) to save the day and everyone else.  I defeated many opponents, beat the creator of Duel Monsters itself, won the title King of Games, got the three stolen souls back to their owners, and was able to finally contact and maintain a friendship with the spirit residing in my body.  I should be elated.

But I'm not.  Far from it, actually.  I can feel my other half brooding in the puzzle, wondering what had made me, his partner, so upset.  I wonder if my other would ever truly understand.  I can't explain it, though, not even to Yami.  He would just say I'm being too hard on myself.  He would try to comfort me.

That's nice and all, but I don't want to be told everything is ok when I know it's not.  So I won't talk to Yami.  I won't call up Joey.  I'll just lie on my bed, stare up at the ceiling, and muse.

Before I had made the wish and gained all these friends, I had a lot of time to myself to think.  And to watch movies, play video games, and read books.  I've dreamed of being the heroes portrayed in those epic plots of unrequited love, of tragic death, and never ending friendship.  The stories in which good always triumphs over evil, and everything comes in pure lines of black and white.

I close my eyes and let out a whimper as Cecilia's picture plays across the curtain of darkness.  I had started out on that quest thinking that all I had to do was defeat Pegasus and everything would be ok.  But saving three innocents had come at the cost of a man's happiness.  Had Pegasus really been so terrible as to deserve the pain of never seeing his love again?

He hadn't been a bad man, just wrongful in his ventures to acquire what he wanted.  Or...had he really been wrong?  To my friends and me he was, but what was he to himself?  People rarely ever did things they knew were wrong simply because they wanted to be wrong.  Society tells humans to achieve perfection, and to attain perfection, one can't be wrong.  In some sick, twisted way, Pegasus must have thought the end justified his means.  Both Kaiba and Yami were no different during their battle with one another.  Kaiba was willing to shatter my dream of winning my grandpa's soul in order to win back that of his brother's.  He was putting his own needs, Mokuba's needs, ahead of my grandpa's and mine.  And Yami had done just the same thing, willing to sacrifice Kaiba's life to help me in his endeavors.  Both thought they were doing the right thing, both knew the consequences, but all else over-rode the warnings blaring in their heads that their actions could possibly be wrong.

The world doesn't come in black and white.  Not the real one humans are forced to live in.  There's too much gray for my liking.  There are too many good intentions paving the road to Hell rather than that to Heaven.  Good intentions don't have to turn into something bad, but too many people have used them wrongly.

I wonder if it's the fact that both Hell and Heaven start with H and E that gets people confused.  I shake my head at the insanity my mind has fled to in order to get away from the confusing thoughts jumbled in my brain.  But it's so hard for me to remain innocent now that I've found out the world is crazy.

I guess I'll just stay young and naive like everyone tells me.  They don't want me to grow up because they need something innocent to hold onto.  And from what I've learned, through all of this pain and confusion, is that I cannot blame them.  I want something innocent to hold onto as well.

So I'll go back to pretending life is a story.  I'll be a child.  I'll stay pure and fight the dark.  Because to tell you the truth, it scares me out there.  I cannot move forward; I fear to.  My path is too dark for my liking, and I fear I'll lose more than just myself in the deep black.