It's been another year.

He doesn't speak anymore.

Sometimes it makes me sad, the way he shuts himself in, the way his spirit is broken. A word comes to mind—domesticated. He's like a tame dog. "Here, Yami." "That's good, Yami." "No, put the knife down, Yami—good boy." It makes me very sad. What happened to the tower of strength I saw him as? It's like loneliness is a cancer, and it is killing him. And what's worse is that I don't know how to stop it. I use a system of rewards for obedience now, but how long will it last? When will the day come when even my company is not enough? It frightens me.

My Soul Room is alive. The walls stretch with my breathing. I never noticed it before. Sometimes he's here with me, sometimes he pins me down on the floor with his weight, because he doesn't want me to leave. "I have to, Yami. I slept past my alarm clock. Let me go." He doesn't. "Yami, I said let me go." The dog obeys timidly, and sits straight and attentive until I will return. Sometimes I don't want to return. Sometimes I want to stay away, to never sleep and barricade myself because his obsession frightens me.

He has a power that scares me. In the little things. I was upset one day, because the girl I asked to the senior prom turned me down. Yami said his first words in a long time, and I'll never forget them. He said, "Someone upset you. Tell me who she is. She made you mad, I can make her cry." I was absolutely shocked. "No," I said. "Just because I'm upset doesn't give us the right to injure her." He didn't say anything else. He hung his head, like a dog that's been struck. He cowered and brooded and tucked his tail between his legs. Yami, you were so glorious once. You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. And now you're this scared, intimidated creature. What happened to you?

It was Halloween. I went to a costume party, and met a cute girl. She was dressed as Catwoman. I was Lestat. We made out in the corner, and it was really nice. Then I don't know what happened, maybe he got jealous, and he took over when my tongue was in her mouth. He bit down. Hard. I came to sometime later, bleeding from my mouth and miles from home. Under a freeway with cars going by, I had an argument with myself. I was yelling at him, yelling at nothing as the cars drove by. A cop took me home because I didn't know where I was. He thought I was high, but I passed his little test. I was very, very angry with Yami. The dog cringed at my raised hand.

He locked himself up after that. He closed and sealed the door behind him as he slinked dejectedly into his Soul Room. He hates that place. He told me so. It's so big and dark and I'm not there. He was punishing himself by going in. I let him sulk. I thought it wouldn't last long, but when I didn't see him for a month, I got worried. Not about him. About me. About what he could do to me if I made him mad enough. His deification of me could so easily turn into seething hatred if he were pushed to it, and that thought alone scared me more than anything else in my life.

"Yami," I said, sitting in the hall outside his door and across from mine. "Come out now, Yami." No answer. Of course. I tried a lure. "Yami, it's your birthday today. If you come out, I'll give you a birthday kiss." Reward for obedience tactic. Keep the dog under boot. A long moment of silence, and then the door creaked open a little too loudly for this mental plane. I peered around the corner. He was plastered against the wall opposite of where I had been sitting. Like he knew I was there. His eyes were so dark. I smiled at him. "Hi there," I said. His eyes said nothing. I crept closer to him. "You okay?" Nothing. At length, his hand came up and his fingers brushed his cheek, at the corner of his mouth, entreating me for the fulfillment of my promised birthday kiss.

I obliged him. His skin was cold.

His fingers went up to his face again, this time to his lips, asking for another, please. "No, Yami," I told him sternly. "Just one." Apparently he didn't like this answer. His brow creased in displeasure, and he brushed his lips with his fingertips again. Insisting. Like a child. Sometimes I feel like I'm speaking to him in sign language. He signs for everything. Stay with me, Aibou. Let me hold you, Aibou. Kiss me here and here, Aibou. I shook my head fiercely. "No," I maintained. "You only get one birthday kiss. No more." He was on his hands and knees, and he looked so dangerous pulling himself along the floor to me. "Yugi," he said, and it was a whimper. He was begging.

And although I'm inclined to believe his actions were perfectly innocent, I still can't help wondering, what would he have done if he reached me, if I hadn't shot to my feet at that moment to try to seem threatening to him? He shied away like the dog he is, understanding suddenly that he'd done something bad, but what had he planned to do if he closed off the short distance? Take another kiss from me? Would it have been enough? Was he still angry that I'd made out with the costume party girl? Did he feel that base instinct to claim what he considers his own, like a dog marking his territory? In what manner did my dog intend to mark me? "Yami," I shouted, "No!" I made sure that my voice was harsh although I was shaking inside. I had to let him knew he'd made me angry, that he'd crossed the line and was never to behave so insolently again. I know he felt the weight of my words, because he wept.

I began thinking of him differently after that. I began seeing him in a different light. I used to think that Yami would never wish to harm me, that of all people, he'd be the first to defend and protect me, that he'd never go against my wishes and instead do everything in his power to give me whatever I want. It had all changed in that one moment. He showed me the animal he really is, the selfish part of him that's been there all along, that's come out now as a result of isolation, that's slowly consumed him, that looks at me and is hungry, and says mineminemineminemine...

I have never been so frightened by someone I love. I have never been so surprised by someone I thought I knew. How the tables have turned. How the roles have switched. I used to be the weak, scared one, and he was my strength, and my champion. Somewhere in the last year or so, he assumed the vulnerable, frightened nature, and I have had to become the one from whom he draws his strength, and it is sapping me of my energy. I am so tired. I miss the Yami I once knew. It makes me very sad to think that he will never come back, he will never be the same, because this is what he's always been under the mask, this is his default nature, which he's taken up now that he's burnt out on duels and conversation and life.

I will still hold out for him, of course, in hopes that he might come around and recover something of his old loving nature. I really have no other choice. It's not like I can do anything about him. I'm stuck with him, but it's okay, because it's always been like this.

And it always will be.