It was still early enough in the day for Yugi to catch some brunch. He pedaled down the block, eagerly soaking in the sounds of chirping birds and pleasant conversation. The sounds of the city. He inhaled sweetly and, for a fleeting moment, wished his darkness was here to enjoy it with him.

No, he put an end to the thought. Darkness was not meant to enjoy the light. Yami wouldn't belong. Would he? Then again, his did take a seemingly ironic solace in his hikari's presence.

Or, plausibly, not so ironic. Perhaps light had been created for the darkness. Instead of being at odds, they were meant to grow and love the other. The moon and the sun, the stars and the clouds, were meant to be one. It would explain the otherwise inexplicable bond between the two, the tender whisperings of beautiful words, or the delicate exchanges of exquisite expressions. They had been born for each other, and, had the stars not been so crossed, they would have died for each other. Light was necessary for darkness to exist, so that it would not be completely extinguished, eradicated, expunged.

Hmm.

Maybe he would take Yami around Domino City more often.

Yugi slowed his pace as he rounded the corner, doe eyes falling upon his favorite café. His tires screeched gently as he came to a stop, locking his rusty yet trusty bicycle to a convenient rack directly outside the tiny shop.

The boy opened the door slowly, taking time to enjoy the sound of the chimes glittering, of voices rising and falling harmoniously, of memories that had been made in the café over the years, and of memories that had yet to be conceived. All of these were tangible in the instant he pulled the glass door towards him, momentarily overcome with nostalgia.

"Hello, Yugi-kun!" a friendly voice floated from behind the counter.

Yugi felt a genuine smile grace his boyish face, subtracting a few years, all the more endearingly.

"Tezuka-san!" he waved.

The bright female made a clicking noise of mock exasperation.

"For the last time, Yugi-kun, call me Ai." Had he not known better, Yugi would've sworn the brunette sent a sea green wink his way. But Ai was with Duke, or so he'd thought. Then again, she was the type to flirt with everyone, Yugi mused.

Yugi ordered a banana nut muffin and a dark chocolate mocha, his regular on his irregular Saturday morning visits. He flashed a youthful smile at the playful barista and took a seat by the sunniest window in the pleasantly bustling café. The chimes sparkled once more.

"Yugi? Is that you?" *

The slightest hint of an accent alerted Yugi to the speaker, his eyes lighting up at the gentle inflection. He turned around to meet the eager eyes of his fellow hikari.

"Hey, Ryou! Come sit."

The white-haired boy obliged, taking a seat across from his shorter counterpart.

"How are you, Yugi?" Ryou asked in sweet, melodic tones.

Yugi wiped his mouth with a napkin. "I'm doing well. I can't complain. Today is just so beautiful, I had to take the opportunity to ride my bike. To get a bit of sun."

Ryou nodded. "Spring brings out the best in people. I wish everyone was always in your kind of mood, that we didn't have to rely on the weather to give us a positive outlook on life."

Yugi scanned the other's face for a twinge of pain as he spoke. He found it. Sympathy flooded his voice as he returned, "How have you been doing, Ryou?"

A sad smile graced Ryou's doe-eyed countenance. "I've been well. Been keeping myself busy with school work and such."

"How are things with Bakura?" Yugi ventured, wincing in anticipation of possibly striking a nerve.

"Things are going better than they were last week."

Yugi nodded compassionately. He'd known that there were tensions between the hikari and yami of the other pair, although he wasn't entirely sure of circumstances regarding these tensions. He didn't want to intrude by asking specific questions, so he simply listened to whatever thoughts Ryou was willing to divulge. He knew that last week Bakura had pushed Ryou to the ground in his characteristic rage, leaving the hikari slightly bruised, but that he begrudgingly apologized later. Ryou was grateful for his yami's effort to reach out to him, but things hadn't been quite the same between them since. From what Yugi could glean, Bakura was normally very tender to Ryou, but when he inadvertently let his violent tendencies betray his hikari, who meant more to him than anything else in all of existence, he behaved more gruffly than usual. Not quite as affectionately. Probably the result of some inner turmoil he couldn't, wouldn't, let Ryou see.

Ryou and Bakura, Yugi noticed for not the first time, were more obviously dark and light than Yami and himself. The stark white contrasted severely with the heavy dark. However, that was not to say that Ryou was completely innocent, naïve, spotless. How could he be with Bakura perpetually lurking in the shadows of his very being? However, that was not to say that Bakura was made up only of darkness, anguish, sin. They seemed to be drawn together by these entwining differences, while Yami and Yugi were more similar than different. They were both loyal, dependable, affectionate. They were both lost, Yami trying to discover his past, Yugi struggling to accept his future. In spite of these similarities, the desperately strong bond between the tangible and the intangible, Yugi knew deep down that they didn't have forever. Nobody did. He knew that Yami was with him in passing, until he could figure out who he was and how he came to be with Yugi. They both liked to call it destiny; Yami would nibble on Yugi's ear and whisper that the gods had dealt the cards in their favor. Whatever the force, they both knew it was a rare gem that most people never experienced, in this life, or the next.

"Well, Ryou, let me know if there's anything I can do to help you."

Ryou nodded and smiled weakly, sweetly. "Thanks, Yugi."

Yugi impulsively clasped his pale hands over the other's.

"Anything."

A slight tint of red painted Ryou's porcelain cheeks.

"Thanks, mate." He returned the sentiment by raising their hands together in a gesture of solidarity.

A throat cleared itself from a few feet away.

"Aww. Look at you two lovebirds."

Yugi smiled. "Good to see you too, Marik."

He knew Marik was teasing. He liked to pretend that Yugi and Ryou were together, since the hikari in them corresponded so seamlessly. The two boys were able to bond especially over their love for their respective yami counterparts, and Yugi had always been there for Ryou when things went awry, although the white-haired boy never liked to admit when he needed the help. Admittedly, they were quite open with their relationship, closer than most males their age would let on with other friends.

The sandy-haired teen took a seat by his fellow yadonushi, pulling his chair close to Ryou. He propped his chin on his hand, eyelashes fluttering at Ryou. He winked at Yugi from across the table when the darker purple eyes lifted to meet the ones of icy lavender. Yugi raised an eyebrow, as if to scold the darker (both in skin color and in spirit) boy for his underhanded flirtation.

"How are you, Ryou?" the dark boy nearly purred.

"I'm well, Marik-kun. Haven't seen you in a while." Ryou turned to face Marik with a smile. "I'm glad we bumped into each other here."

Marik laughed loudly, almost harshly, and positioned himself in his chair so he could rest his head on Ryou's bony shoulder while clutching his forearm as a child would. He flashed another coy smile in Yugi's direction. What game was he playing? By what rules? Knowing the Egyptian's mischievous nature, Yugi thought, he had undoubtedly fashioned his own rules for this impromptu game of indefinite flirtation.

All of this went unnoticed by Ryou, of course, the most gracious and comparatively naïve of the three. The other two had had their share of romance, Yugi with Tea (a flop, but an encounter nonetheless) and now Yami, and Marik with countless men and women of golden sands and soft voices with seductive inflections. They were able to recognize the signs of attraction, making Marik's blatant flirtation all the more amusing, given that it went directly over Ryou's head.

Yugi clucked knowingly. Marik had captured Ryou's attention with a digital camera, gushing about the places he'd been and the pictures he'd taken, immortalizing pieces of infinity within the span of 10.2 megapixels. Impressive. Ryou smiled warmly and laughed softly at the company and wit of the other as Yugi watched from what felt greater a distance than it was. Suddenly, he missed his other half.

The pain seared through the hikari like a knife reentering an old wound. He felt his knees weaken and his head grow woozy with waves of fever, crashing in his mind relentlessly. The age-old feeling of missing his One and Only slowly began to consume him until it was almost unbearable.

Ryou sensed a disturbance in the essential balance between Yugi and himself. Ryou glanced up from the pixelated images to confirm his suspicions. The look on Yugi's face told him that nothing could be okay ever again, not until Darkness scooped him up in constant arms and lay him down on the worn creaky ancient indulgent beautiful tattered bed they'd shared since… when? The beginning? What was the beginning? Suddenly nothing was clear. It was not unlike looking through a telescope at a cloudy night sky, yearning, crying for even a single star to save him from the singular stigma of solitude.

Yugi tried to shake himself out of it, which, as always, proved to be more difficult than anticipated. The more he tried to force a patient smile, the more despondent he became. The more despondent he became, the sillier he felt for missing someone who promised always, so even if he wasn't there, he was. The sillier he felt, the more frustrated he grew over his inability to think of anything but his current state of pathetic half-existence. At this point, the only thing to do was wallow.

"I say, Yugi, are you all right?" Ryou's bottomless brown eyes worriedly searched the purple orbs staring back at him.

"Ryou, I need to go. I'll see you later."

Marik stopped his game of unabashed wooing long enough to take in Yugi's dejected expression. He stood up and stooped down to the poor creature, scanning him with warm concern.

"Hey, it's all right." He gave the distressed boy a friendly hug, his Egyptian warmth overwhelming the smaller boy in tiny bouts. He embarked on a strange journey of consciousness in which he was intensely distraught but largely unsure as to why or how it began, which only increased his misery. Although the bronzed-skinned boy's sympathetic rather than purely coquettish gesture did comfort him a bit. A reluctant smile turned his lips upward, causing the other boy to beam blatantly.

Convinced that he had cured Yugi of whatever unexplained force was assailing him, he boldly took Ryou by the arm and pulled him from his seat.

"You heard Yugi, Ryou-chan. He's a busy guy. Let's go to the park."

Ryou's chocolate eyes sparkled at the mention of the park.

"Oh, yes! But - "

A wave of indecision passed through his eyes. He turned back to the recently unhinged Yugi.

"Will you be okay, Yugi?" he asked in soft tones. "I don't want to leave you like this."

Yugi waved his hand in a sign of dismissal. "I'll be fine. I'm being silly. I get in strange moods sometimes, I can't really explain it." He smiled feebly. "But I'll be fine."

Still unsure, Ryou bent down and wrapped his slender arms around Yugi's slight frame. The smaller boy shifted comfortably in his arms, content to remain this way for a few moments. He almost instantly felt significantly better. He was so grateful to have Ryou in his life. A more candid smile brightened his countenance, which Ryou reciprocated heartily.

"I'll see you guys later!" Yugi waved goodbye to the other two hikari. He grabbed his empty cup and crumpled up napkins and tossed them into a wastebasket by the door. The chimes swirled restlessly, an ethereal chorus of overlapping melodies, as Yugi let the door slam behind him.

*A/N: Now, I want you to stop for a minute and think about the incredulity of this line. You are Ryou. You are walking into a café. You see your friend sitting in the corner. Your friend has spiky gold purple black hair. He's dressed like a bondage slave as usual. Just to be sure it's him and not someone else, you call out to him. And whaddya know, he turns around, and it is him. Like. Ryou. Baby doll. Who the shit else looks like that.

Shout outs:
-Thanks to my friend & roommate Mermaids, who showers me with praise and inspires me to think of plot with her awesome ability to keep her story introspective, but also moving along at an appropriate pace. (If you haven't already checked out In the Blackest of Rooms, you should!)
-Thank you, sweet dreams, for the lovely compliment. :D
Other reviewers, I'm glad my writing could make you feel feelings. ^^

Anyway, please review! I would really appreciate more feedback.