Whew… eight reviews, the first evening after posting, before I went to bed. And fifteen in total! Fifteen! I'm truly impressed. And flattered! Thanks, guys!
Therefore, I've done my best to get through finishing this chapter as soon as possible, hopefully without sacrificing quality. Unfortunately, as I have yet to finish Chapter 5, the time before the next update may be a bit longer, and I should warn you there may be a shorter (hopefully much shorter) hiatus as I prepare a few more chapters. But there's no big cliffie this time, though, so at least I can leave you guys with a bit more of a settled chapter as I go off to write more.
I will get back to your reviews as soon as possible, but to be honest, it's a choice between responding to all your kind reviews (which I am most grateful for!) and getting the next chapter up a little faster. I do respond to every review I can, unless one somehow gets missed: it'll just take longer.
Also unfortunately, I have to give my apologies for those of you who have expressed wishes or suggestions for future plot points: while you've all given great ideas that I would love to incorporate, I've got several future chapters already finished (though not yet polished) and most of the others extensively planned out, so any major changes are, at the moment, unlikely. However, the ideas are still most welcome, as I still may change some smaller things as the story goes on!
All I have to warn for in this chapter is slight fluff. This story makes it… kind of inevitable, really. You may take it as you wish, and I have no problem with that at all (believe me, I'm the last person who would), but I am only intending platonic bonds, particularly between two people/spirits who have been joined at the hip for over a year. That's just the way I roll. Dude.
Hope you enjoy!
4
Darkness.
And pain.
The darkness he was used to, for all those hundreds, thousands of years spent drifting within the Millennium Puzzle. But the pain was new. The pain was overwhelming, throbbing through his head like there was something inside him trying to break out. Aching. Stinging. Cracking right into his skull.
"Mou hitori no boku?"
He opened his eyes.
The darkness dissipated, making room instead for a blur of colors he couldn't quite make out or even begin to understand. The light shot through his skull like fire, but a moment later that too faded to a duller ache. He tried moving a hand, but it stayed stubbornly limp at his side, so he was left to just blink as his vision began to clear.
Violet.
Shapes of violet—two of them, vague, unsure—formed into two big, wide, worried eyes, and another blink later, Yami found himself staring at a familiar face, surrounded by spikes of colored hair that hung near his face from how close to him the other had leaned, so much that one poke in the back probably could have knocked him over.
Yami wanted to offer a smile, but instead he just squinted and blinked again.
"Aibou …?"
The sigh of relief that followed knocked him out of his blurry trance and back into reality once more.
And reality involved the last remnants of the headache still pounding through his skull.
He winced, and noticed the unfamiliar yet easily recognizable sounds of similar relieved sighs echoing about the room. A brief glance around him confirmed that Aibou was not the only one nearby. He was half-surrounded—as apparently he was lying on the couch, and everyone had crowded on one side—by Jounouchi-kun, Honda-kun, Anzu, Jii-cha—Mutou-san, and, of course, Aibou, right at his side and finally deciding to lean back so he wasn't perched so precariously over the couch.
Yami tried one more time to move his hand, and this time he succeeded, and he used his elbow to push himself up just a little. Any more than a little and his headache seemed quite determined to return.
Aibou leaned forward, then back again, and sighed one more time. "You're okay …"
Yami rubbed at his eye and forced a nod.
"I'm fine, Aibou …"
He knew Aibou could tell he was lying, if only a little, but he did it anyway, and he felt no guilt when the boy gave him that distinctive quirked eyebrow that screamed disbelief.
But Aibou's disbelieving gaze was missed by the rest of the group, and Jounouchi-kun stumbled back and collapsed into a nearby chair as if he had just let go of the heaviest anvil in the world from on top of his shoulders. He sighed long and deep.
"Geez, man, you really had us going there!"
Yami tried to smile, but couldn't quite manage it, and Honda-kun shook his head. "I think Anzu was about to have a heart attack."
Anzu said nothing, but the furrowed scowl and pink color that spread across her face sent the message plenty well enough.
Yami adjusted himself to lean on both his elbows. The world around him wobbled and spun every few seconds, sending each of his friends flying from left to right in his eyes, but he forced himself steady. He breathed slow, deep breaths and flicked his eyes to where Aibou was climbing onto the couch to sit near the small space on the edge where his legs hadn't taken up all the available couch. Yami sighed.
"I'm … I'm alright … just …"
He winced as another wobble threw itself at him, and one of the hands meant to balance him shot up to grip the side of his head.
It seemed only a split instant later that his head fell back, only to meet the softness of a pillow and the remnant feeling of the presence of a warm hand. He turned his gaze and found Aibou patting the side of the pillow. Aibou pulled his hand back, then scooted closer and took one of Yami's hands in his own.
Their fingers and palms brushed, warm skin meeting warm skin. Yami breathed out and met Aibou's gaze. He could not manage much, but he forced his lips into the tiniest of smiles and squeezed Aibou's hand in return.
Aibou seemed to be trying just as hard to keep the reassuring smile on his face.
Someone shifted, and Yami turned in time to see Anzu kneeling closer to the couch and biting her lip with such obviousness she might as well have announced it.
"What … happened, Yuugi?"
Yami and Aibou jerked up their heads in such unison it might have actually been funny.
A moment later Yami imagined Aibou blushing and turning away from the way the squeezes in his hand shifted, and Yami shook of his head. "I … have no idea. I just …"
"Fainted?" Jounouchi-kun broke in, a bit too eagerly.
Yami nodded. "My head hurt."
Honda-kun gave a half-bitter chuckle. "Yeah, that part was obvious. I've never seen a migraine that bad."
"Honda!"
"Honestly!" Honda-kun shot back at Anzu, eyes a little desperate. Anzu just groaned.
Yami adjusted his head on the pillow and ran a few fingers over the warm skin of Aibou's wrist, not caring if he noticed, feeling the pulsing life within him. "So … what happened after I …"
"You just fell over!" Jounouchi-kun leapt from the chair like a storyteller in the midst of a famed epic. "Honda and I caught you, but you were this close to hitting the concrete face-first and man, that would have left a mark!"
Yami blinked. Honda-kun shoved Jounouchi-kun aside and jumped forward.
"I swear, it happened in two seconds! You were just walking and—"
Yami knew they would have easily gone on like that for an hour. Even two, maybe, if Anzu hadn't slapped them both in the face by then. Their eyes showed enthusiasm Yami might have taken as offensive if he hadn't known the two so well: enthusiasm that could have held up for a grand long time.
If they hadn't been cut off by the distinctive ringing of the phone on the little table next to the couch.
Yami turned and stared at the large blue receiver and "deck," a wire Yami didn't know how he had failed to notice stretching out of his sight. It rung again, loud, obnoxious, quite nearly making the part of the headache that still failed to leave return full force.
He quirked a brow. "I didn't know there was a phone in this room."
"We brought it in here before you woke up." Aibou released Yami's hand and scrambled over to the little table as everyone stood close and watched him like he was pulling the winning card from his deck.
Aibou pulled the phone to his ear.
"Hello?" A pause. Not a shift from any of the four surrounding the boy. Aibou's lips turned into a grin. "Ishizu-san!"
Yami just about shot up, if it weren't for the voice in his head reminding him of the painful consequences of moving at all.
Anzu, Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun, however, leaned in with every bit of the same enthusiasm. As if they were about to learn some great and terrible secret, and if they couldn't lean in close enough to hear it on the other side of the phone line, they would never hear it at all.
Aibou blinked. "One second, let me put you on speaker …"
The four of them breathed out, and Aibou set down the phone and pressed a button on the deck.
"How's that?"
"That sounds fine, Yuugi."
It might have seemed like years since he had last heard the voice of the woman who had come in out of nowhere and changed all their lives before Battle City. And for Yami, that was reasonable, given that he had only a year's worth of memories to draw from. But he knew it had only been a few months, and she had yet to change a bit. Ishizu's voice seemed to resonate all around the room from the phone on the table, and all breathed a collective second breath, as if the fact that Ishizu was involved at all suddenly meant that the situation had resolved itself.
Anzu gave a small, nervous laugh to accompany her grin. "Good to, uh, see you again, Ishizu-san!"
"Hello, Anzu," Ishizu answered. Yami heard the smile in her tone.
Yami shifted on the pillow with every bit of care he possessed not to jolt his head. He balanced himself on the edge of the couch and tried to smile, even if he knew she couldn't see it.
"Hello, Ishizu."
It hardly required effort to imagine the person behind the voice jolting, the phone clutched tighter in a tan hand, that hand so very near to trembling. The voice stuttered.
"… is that … Yuugi, was that you?"
Aibou chuckled, almost bittersweet. "Well, not me, Ishizu-san."
A pause. Heavy. Everyone leaned in a little more. Yami shifted forward on the pillow.
"… there was no joke in that phone call, then."
"Sorry," Honda-kun broke in as Anzu opened her mouth to answer. He leaned back in the chair he had chosen. "He's all here, in the flesh." He flicked a glance to Yami. "Literally."
Yami wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh or glare.
The voice hesitated. Yami wondered how long it had been since Ishizu was uncertain. "… and this … just happened yesterday?"
Aibou breathed a heavy breath. Something deep in Yami's chest constricted.
"Last night. Around midnight, I think."
"Exactly midnight, Aibou." Yami turned just enough to meet the big violet eyes on other side of the couch. "I saw your clock."
"And you've both taken completely separate, functional, physical forms?"
More definite now. Jounouchi-kun seemed conflicted between rolling his eyes and smirking. He jabbed his thumb toward Yami on the couch. "He can walk and eat by himself, if that's what you mean."
Yami shifted.
He was beginning to wonder if Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun were trying to lighten up the mood, or if they just found it hilarious to annoy him.
The voice was quiet for a long time. It was clear that Ishizu hadn't hung up or gone off somewhere. If he listened closely, Yami almost thought he could still hear her breathing. But she did not speak. No one spoke. Everyone listened and waited.
Ishizu's voice, breaking the silence, nearly shook. "… this is quite the phenomenon."
Honda-kun snorted. "You're telling us."
Yami adjusted his head again on the pillow, trying to push back the headache that threatened to return. That vague sting near the back of his skull, pulsing through his whole being. He turned his gaze to Aibou. Aibou looked back to him. The boy blinked, and not another second passed before he took his hand and rubbed the inside of Yami's wrist with his thumb.
Aibou smiled. And Yami let himself smile back.
The voice on the speaker coughed.
"What were the circumstances of this … change?"
She took a more professional tone with each word, much like she had that first day in the museum when she seemed to know everything there was to know. Like an interviewer interrogating one who had just witnessed an alien abduction.
Another cough, quieter this time. "Is there anything in the surrounding time frame which might have been related?"
All eyes looked up from the speaker. Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun and Anzu and Aibou. And Yami, moving so he could see everyone else without having to lift his head from the pillow, or move his hand from Aibou's grasp.
He felt Aibou squeeze his hand. But by the time he turned and tried to meet Aibou's gaze, Aibou had looked away, and a second later, he began.
It wasn't a long story. In fact, now that Yami actually heard it spoken aloud, even he had to admit that it was fairly simple, and even when he tried to think of something to add, he was left blank. Aibou explained everything in a much stronger tone than Yami would have thought him capable of. Definite, with only hints of uncertainty, hints here and there of doubt.
If he hadn't been trying to make his brain rest, he might have let himself feel truly proud.
Yami looked to the clock sitting on a second table nearby, and squinted to catch the ticking hands of hour and minute. It still just looked a blur to him from this angle, and even if he had been able to read it, he wouldn't have been able to tell how long Aibou had been talking.
But it seemed that after Aibou closed his mouth, the silence that followed lasted a good deal longer than the talking itself.
Aibou leaned back on the couch as much as he could with Yami's legs in the way, and Yami squeezed his hand a little more.
Ishizu sighed. "Well."
"Well?" Anzu prompted. She knelt in front of the little table, legs tucked under her, arms resting on the table and chin resting on her arms.
"… I'm still not quite sure what to say. This is entirely new to me."
Jounouchi-kun jumped up from the chair he had slumped over in, and if Yami hadn't known better, he would have thought the table shook.
"That's it?" He took a step forward, and even Anzu leaned back to avoid getting any nearer to him than she was. "You can't figure out why Yuugi, or the other Yuugi, suddenly just got a whole new body out of thin air?"
In any other situation, it would have seemed commonplace, even expected, for Anzu to tell Jounouchi-kun to shut his mouth and leave Ishizu alone. But Anzu said nothing of the sort. She frowned, and Aibou shifted on the couch. But everyone stayed silent.
It seemed a million years later that the speaker huffed out a quiet sigh.
"It's just that, Jounouchi. There is no explanation for this I can think of, not with my current knowledge."
Yami wondered if it might have felt easier, gentler, if Ishizu had popped out of the phone and slapped him across the face. It certainly would have been easier to understand, easier to take. A slap, he could react to. He could slap back. He could threaten or scold. He could form a definite solution.
But these words, words that meant no harm and words that made his head spin with uncertainties and thousands upon thousands of questions, hit something within him that could not defend, and could not fight back.
He opened his mouth, but Ishizu spoke first.
"Rishid and I are currently hosting an exhibition in London. I don't think we would be able to make it to Japan until we're finished here, but, if you can, I'd recommend you come here. Perhaps meeting in person would yield more definite results."
The last words dripped with hesitance, the kind given to soldiers before the heat of battle. Yami swallowed them, tasting their bitterness far down into his throat.
Honda-kun let his jaw fall open before Yami could begin to think of a word to say.
"England?"
Jounouchi-kun flicked his eyes to the side. "Yeah, Honda, London's in England."
"Is there anyone else who can help us, Ishizu-san?" Anzu broke in, and this time she leaned over just enough to give the ankles of both the taller boys a half-hearted smack. "Malik-kun, maybe?"
There was another silence. Brief, but it did not take much imagination for Yami to picture Ishizu fidgeting with her cell phone in hand.
"Malik is in Egypt. I would send him, but he's been highly preoccupied lately with his own work."
Jounouchi-kun put his elbows on his knees, turning a quick glance to Anzu as if afraid she would slap him again. "Don't you think this is just a little more important?"
Ishizu quieted. Jounouchi-kun said nothing else, and Anzu seemed to be using every bit of her self-control to resist telling Jounouchi-kun to shut up.
The voice on the speaker turned calculating, and only just short of cold. "In the aftermath of Battle City, there are still many issues left to work out. Malik has been doing his best to clean up the last of the mess he created with the Ghouls. A significant trip now would not only be difficult, but may ruin all of the efforts he has put forth so far." Another pause. Her tone shook, only just, as if she was actively holding it back. "He has been under enough stress recently as it is."
Anzu scooted to the side and gave a sharp jab with her elbow into Jounouchi-kun's knee.
Ishizu sighed a heavier sigh.
"I'm afraid that's all I can offer. Believe me when I say I wish there was more I could do."
Aibou released Yami's hand, and Yami turned his head to find Aibou staring at him with eyes that made something deep within him twist and constrict. He wanted to clutch his chest, clutch the hand that had let go of his. But he stayed still, and Aibou let out a long breath, weighted and cold. Never in his existence had Yami felt more useless.
"Thank you, Ishizu-san. We'll let you know."
"Yes, Yuugi. I send my best."
The speaker clicked. Anzu reached over and placed the receiver back in its stand.
Everyone looked at one another, and all the silences up to that very moment paled in the heavy quiet that settled over them all right then.
Jounouchi-kun leaned back in his chair.
"So … anyone got five plane tickets to England they're not using?"
Honda-kun scoffed and squeezed his fist for a punch, but did not aim it. "Yeah, Jounouchi, like we've all got the money to go to London."
Aibou might have said something to the contrary. Something optimistic, as he often did, whenever things seemed hopeless. But Aibou did not even open his mouth. He remained on the couch, his spine hunched and his fingers twiddling together in his lap.
Yami didn't know everything that went on in the Mutou household. But even he had been aware enough to remember the day just last week when Jii-chan had bought the ticket to Cairo. Aibou refused to tell Yami how much it had been—and Yami somehow doubted he would understand the answer he was given, however much he did understand about modern Japanese currency. But Yami knew well enough from the look on Jii-chan's face that plane tickets did not come cheap.
And plane tickets to England, if his geography was correct, were hardly going to come much cheaper.
Yami jolted when Anzu stood fast enough to make the little table shake. She balanced herself, dug into the side pocket of her skirt and pulled out her pink cell phone with a charm dangling off the end, and flipped it open.
Jounouchi-kun quirked a brow with a hesitance that suggested he was expecting another blow.
"What are you doing, Anzu?"
Anzu looked at her phone, then at Jounouchi-kun, then around at Honda-kun and Aibou and Yami at last. She held her gaze on Yami the longest, her eyes swirling with so many thoughts and emotions Yami doubted anyone could read them all. Then she let out a long and frustrated breath.
"Probably something stupid."
Honda-kun held back a snort. "Never thought she'd admit to that."
Anzu did not even glare. She merely pressed her thumb to the buttons on her keypad and brought the phone to the ear.
If he listened very close, Yami could hear the phone on the other end of the line begin to ring.
"Oh, come on, Kaiba, you're loaded, one trip to London won't even make a dent in your back pocket!"
It was the sort of dialogue that likely would have made Yami snort to keep back his own laughter, if it weren't for his own stubborn pride that would not allow him to do more than just stand there and listen. The words, of course, fit the speaker, and the situation, he was sure.
But still. Finding humor in everyday matters was something Aibou had somehow succeeded in teaching him, and now, he had to bite the inside of his lip to keep himself from snickering.
Anzu turned as sharp on her heels as her house slippers would allow without slipping. She had, at some point, apparently decided to take out her frustration on her cell phone and hold it to her ear with such fervency that Yami wondered how she still had a right ear. And that fervency only increased with her eyebrows lowered in a threat unique to her, and she raised a finger to her lips in a motion Jounouchi-kun had apparently learned long ago meant business.
He clamped his mouth shut.
"Jounouchi! …yes, Kaiba-kun … No, I promise, we're not lying! … Yes, I know it's hard to believe, but you were there in Battle City, and with Doma!"
Yami was sure Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun would have given anything to hear both sides of the conversation. Aibou probably would have given a lot to hear it as well, but Aibou, being as he was, simply stood to the side and waited with a patient air Yami couldn't quite bring himself to envy, but still sometimes wished for in himself.
Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun, on the other hand, had no such patient dignity, and snuck as close to Anzu as they could when she turned away, trying to catch snippets of the voice on the other end of the line.
Honda-kun, apparently the daring one this time, took a bigger step forward, and Anzu turned on him with such ferocity that it sent him scrambling all the way back to the front door.
She breathed a quiet sigh indistinguishable from a normal breath, and nodded though she knew the person in question would not see.
"…I know it's not your problem. … No, there is no other way we can get there, Kaiba-kun, we don't have the money …"
Even Yami couldn't quite keep himself from leaning in, though he knew that wouldn't help him hear any better. He had finally managed to stand without much trouble about a minute into Anzu's call, deciding that being on equal ground with the others was worth his headache. Aibou occasionally pushed him back down to the couch, but Yami would stand right back up not a few seconds later, and watch with an interest he hadn't even expected in himself.
Anzu went quiet for a few moments, her expressions changing as if she was listening to something of grave importance. Aibou leaned in as well, not enough to be caught but plenty enough for Yami to see.
Anzu nodded, though her listener couldn't see it. "Yes. Alright."
She held the phone a little away from her ear, and Yami was almost sure he could hear faint music from the receiver of the phone.
Honda-kun gawked.
"Did he just put you on hold?"
Jounouchi-kun's jaw fell. Anzu lowered her brow in threat.
"Mokuba-kun came in, they're talking," she hissed back, her hand sliding up to cover the mouthpiece of the phone. Honda-kun crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. Anzu opened her mouth, then shut it as her hand dropped from the phone pressed near her ear. "Hm? Yes …"
Aibou looked at Yami, and Yami looked at Aibou. Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun flicked fairly obvious glances to one another, making faces they didn't seem to realize were clear enough for Anzu to catch. But Anzu just blinked as she held the phone even closer to her ear, and her big blue eyes went wide, her lips turning into a grin.
"… yes. Yes. … thank you! … Yes. Yes, I'll tell them. Thank you, Kaiba-kun."
She suppressed a cheery, triumphant giggle and flipped the phone shut.
Jounouchi-kun only just kept his eyes from bulging from his head.
"Kaiba said yes?"
Anzu's smile did not falter. "Not at first. I guess he changed his mind after he talked to Mokuba-kun."
"I love that kid," Honda-kun muttered to no one in particular, arms crossed over his chest and head shaking back and forth.
Aibou let his eyes gleam.
"So he'll get us a flight?"
If it was even possible, Anzu's grin grew. "Even better!"
A pause. Stares. Jounouchi-kun furrowed his brow. "Huh?"
Any logical sense would have told Yami that Anzu had lost it. But logical sense and past experience also told him that when Anzu had a good feeling about something, that was probably good reason to trust it. Even still, he had a very difficult time feeling secure at the near-ridiculous smile still evident on Anzu's face as she clasped her hands together, suddenly looking about five years old.
"He got us a private jet!"
And the dam waters broke.
"A what?" Honda-kun quite near gawked.
Anzu grinned the same as before. For once, she took no notice of the strange looks Jounouchi-kun gave. Her voice pitched high, as if she had just been told she received a full scholarship to the best dance school in America.
"He says it hasn't even been released yet. KaibaCorp's been developing autopilot jets modeled off of the remote-control rescue helicopter he saved us with in Battle City, out on the docks." She clapped her hands together, once, twice, and her teeth shimmered with the grin that stretched almost to her ears. "All to ourselves, the whole thing!"
Jounouchi-kun quirked a brow that made him look more like an accomplished scholar than an aspiring pro duelist.
"So Kaiba's getting us a … remote-control jet?"
Anzu's smile finally waned, and even Yami had to admit it felt like the tension in the room had dropped off its peak. "It's a little more complicated than that, Jounouchi."
Jounouchi-kun shrugged and turned away like a child deprived of his glory. "Sounds like a remote-control jet to me."
"Did he believe us?" Aibou broke in before Honda-kun could give the sarcastic comment Yami was sure was on his lips.
Anzu shrugged, brow furrowed, then shook her head.
"I don't think so. Not all the way, anyway." Her lips twitched up again into a smile much more tame, and which didn't make her look like the bubbly girls in the billboard advertisements scattered around Domino City. "But he got us the jet, so that has to count for something."
Yami just nodded and tried very hard to keep himself from frowning.
Anzu crossed her arms. "It leaves tomorrow out by the warehouses on the edge of town, eight sharp."
"Eight?"
"Oh, come on, Anzu!"
She shot glares at Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun that somehow seemed much more characteristic of her than the huge smile of not half a minute before.
"The flight's eleven hours long! We'll get there late as it is! Then there's the time zone change, so we'll really get there right on time in the morning, and we still have to—"
Aibou stepped forward and smiled as she opened her mouth again. "Thank you, Anzu."
Anzu turned and closed her mouth. She smiled at Aibou, then at Yami, as if she was smiling at the only two sane people left in the world. She nodded.
"I'd better let Ishizu-san know."
With one more smile that lasted longer than Yami would have expected, the sort of lingering contentedness of which she did not want to let go, Anzu flipped open her phone once again.
Honda-kun crossed his arms over his chest. "So … we're going to England, I guess?"
Jounouchi-kun nodded, a grin evident on his face. He opened his mouth with what seemed to be a million wonderful things dripping from his tongue, before his smile drooped, and his arms fell helpless to his sides.
"… how am I supposed to talk to anybody?"
"In English?" Honda-kun shot back.
"I can't speak English!"
"Haven't you been paying any attention in class?"
"I've had better things on my mind!"
"What, Duel Monsters?"
Jounouchi-kun seemed to try very hard—and failed quite terribly—at keeping the blush from his cheeks. He tightened his fists at his sides. "Like I said! Way better things!"
Anzu rolled her eyes as she wracked her brain for the numbers to dial into her phone, and Aibou laughed out loud, that laugh resonating throughout the room. It faded into a quiet smile, proud and true on his face, and eyes that sparkled when he turned his head and let his smile soak into Yami as well.
Yami rubbed his hands together behind his back. Fingers twiddling, nervous twitches, uncertainties that raced through him much like they had long ago when he knew something was wrong, something was off, but he couldn't yet tell what or why or how. A million possibilities ran into his head, too fast for him to identify even one. Loud and quiet. Soft and sure. Swirling and screaming to make themselves known.
He opened his mouth, then, a moment later, let it close. He shook his head, just enough so he could feel it, and he let his lips turn into a smile given to Aibou in return.
He wondered if perhaps he was getting far too worrisome for his own good.
Mutou-san gave him a futon.
It still felt strange to call him that. It wasn't like he couldn't have called him Jii-chan, as he always had in the past. Yet somehow it felt wrong. And the last thing he needed right now of all times was to mess up something as simple as being polite.
Still. "Mutou-san" was just strange.
He sat down with all the formalities he had learned—though he still sat cross-legged, even with his vague memory of someone saying it wasn't the most proper way to sit in this country. The futon, laid out, was soft and comfortable, and overall, it looked like a fairly good bed. Apparently it was a lot more comfortable than the couch, which Yami hadn't actually tried after his incident with fainting, so he was just going to trust everyone else on that point.
Aibou had gotten so close to offering him the bed while he took the futon in the living room. But Yami had stopped him before he could get past the first two words.
He heard something like a giggle from the doorway to the room, and he looked up.
He knew it was Aibou without seeing him. The voice was familiar. He couldn't sense him now, not like he could before—and that made something within him ache almost as bad as his head that afternoon—but he still knew when Aibou was nearby. He supposed Jounouchi-kun would call it a sixth sense. Anzu might call it magic.
Yami just called it a bond, built over a long time of sharing the very physical vessel to which they were both tied.
Or had been.
He quirked an eyebrow when Aibou giggled again, this time glancing away and covering his mouth, as if those giggles were already threatening to turn into full out laughter. "What is it?"
Aibou stifled what almost sounded like a snort. "Just … nothing."
"It is definitely not nothing, Aibou, what is it?"
"Well, you …" Aibou removed his hand, but pressed his lips tight to hold back a laugh that racked through his body. "Looking at that futon … you look so … confused."
Yami blinked, and a part of him reminded him that that blink was, in fact, real. "I am confused."
"I know, it's just …"
Aibou laughed again, this time not even restraining it, and Yami sighed and rolled his eyes. But he smiled nonetheless. Some leftover instinct from his early days made it difficult to feel annoyed when Aibou was so happy. Still, he tried to adjust himself on the futon so he looked a bit more dignified, and he began unfolded the blanket he had been given to lay out.
After a moment, Aibou's laughter ceased, and Yami watched the bare feet and pajama-clad legs walk over and sit down next to him on the large, thin mattress.
"I guess Jii-chan couldn't find any pajamas for you, then?"
Yami glanced in indifference at the same black sleeveless shirt and dark pants he had been wearing since he came into this world. They hadn't really been dirtied, since apparently—or so Aibou said—he had a miraculous ability not to sweat, but Mutou-san had helped him pick out a replacement pair for the next day. Aibou's clothes fit him, though they were a bit small, but apparently Aibou only kept two identical pairs of pajamas. One was in the wash—Aibou's mother was away on some trip, and Mutou-san had no clue how to do laundry—and the other lay in front of him, wrapped around Aibou, who suddenly looked very small.
He shrugged. "This is fine. I like these clothes."
Aibou quirked his head like a little child contemplating the oddities of another world. "If you're sure."
Yami gave a quick and curt nod.
"Aibou."
Aibou looked at him. It was the same look that Aibou always gave him when he was about to ask a question, when Aibou had no idea if he would be able to answer but nonetheless opened himself to give anything he could. But somehow that gaze caught him, more so than before, and Yami felt that those big violet eyes had grown up in the course of a day, and suddenly they bored into his soul.
He breathed out a breath that was not quite like a sigh. "Is everything alright?"
A moment's silence. Just a moment, then Aibou jolted and blinked.
"Of course!" He rubbed the back of his head, and his mouth twitched up and down as if it was debating with itself as to whether or not to grin. "I mean, besides the whole 'new body' thing … which isn't bad, really, I'm happy you've got your body, I just—"
"Aibou."
Yami narrowed his eyes in a quiet knowing even he did not understand. This time, it was Aibou who sighed.
Of the millions of things Yami wanted to say to the boy sitting next to him on the futon, Yami could find very few that he thought he could actually push past his lips. He swallowed, as if there was some deep secret even he didn't know that kept trying to force its way up his throat, and he had to work every muscle of his being to keep it back. Keep it contained. Silent.
He stretched his arms behind him and balanced his weight on his wrists.
"I know what you mean. It's … very new," he muttered. He twitched and rubbed his wrist with his thumb. "All of it."
Aibou bit his lip. "Is there anything I can do to … help?"
Violet eyes shimmered, and Yami wanted nothing more than to scoot forward and embrace the young teenager staring at him from such a short distance away. But he kept his place, let his lips turn into a smile, and hoped that somehow, that small gesture would be clear.
"I'm fine. It just takes … getting used to."
Aibou nodded, like one nods to something one finds obvious but does not mind hearing again. He crossed and uncrossed his legs as Yami watched. He clutched his ankles and rocked back and forth like a cradle, and his eyes turned to meet Yami's as he released a long but quiet breath.
"So," he started, voice hesitant but clear. He glanced away. "England."
Yami cocked his head and nodded. "Maybe Ishizu will know something about all of … this."
Silence. The ticking of the clock somewhere in the room Yami had yet to discern, the shuffling of feet upstairs as Mutou-san prepared for bed. And finally, Aibou huffing a sound and shaking his head like he had just been told he was to receive KaibaCorp for his birthday.
"Man, England …"
"What about it?" Yami shifted and resisted the urge to smirk.
Aibou shook his head, and the spikes of his hair swung back and forth, bangs bouncing and almost glowing in the pale overhead light. "I never thought I'd get to go to England!"
"Aibou, we've been all across Japan, to America, a private island …"
"I know, I know." Aibou laughed a sort of half-laugh, with a discomfort that was far from bitter tingeing his voice, and disbelief evident in his tone. He sighed very long and very loud, and his eyes settled on Yami, and the glimmering in them grew serene. "We seem to be going pretty much everywhere, don't we?"
Yami wanted to frown. He kept it back. "Our adventures tend to take us everywhere."
Aibou laughed again, and this time, the bitterness was difficult to hide.
"Right."
He looked away, and no matter how much Yami wanted to speak, the words caught in his throat, screaming at him but never coming out, and he was struck silent for an eternity and a day. And yet Aibou lifted his head as if it had only been a few ticks of the clock, and breathed again.
"I never thought I'd go to Egypt, either."
He did not quite meet Yami's eyes. Yami shifted, aching with every fiber of his being to stop the pain that flowed from this innocent young boy. But Aibou stared at the ground, and Yami swallowed as faint words pushed past his lips and into the world.
"Are there many things you'd like to see?"
Aibou didn't blink. "I don't think there'll be much time for sightseeing."
"… right."
The simple tone in Aibou's voice made something deep within Yami weigh down again. It was a pain he knew, a pain he had grown quite familiar with through all his time in the Puzzle. But it was realer now, and heavier, now that he had actual weight to link to it. He had a body. And the chest that concealed the deep, unforgiving ache was real, too, and he had to do all he could to keep himself from raising a hand to clutch it.
But he forgot about his hand and the aching in his chest when Aibou's face turned once again cheery and bright. His lips curled up, and in an instant, Aibou was there again, just the same as before.
"But hey! England! I've read all about it, it's supposed to be great! Good food, all this stuff to see, and great free English lessons, just walking around!"
Yami grinned, a small grin compared to the perky one stretched across Aibou's face, but a grin nonetheless."Is it big?"
"London?" Aibou stretched his thin arms out to the sides as far as they would go, and quite nearly bumped the little table with his thumb. "Huge!"
A chuckle that Yami was not sure was real pushed its way past his lips, and he adjusted himself on wrists that were beginning to ache and gave a hint of a nervous grin.
"Just … make sure I don't get lost."
Aibou's smile kept up, and he nodded with the faintest hint of a laugh. "Don't worry. We'll stay together."
And it seemed only a moment later that the words soaked into both their minds like water soaking into a lung, and the ache in Yami's chest stung again, and the smile that had yet to leave Aibou's face changed into something that made Yami want to lean forward and hug him again.
Then Aibou stood.
"Well, we've got a big day tomorrow. Not to mention a long plane ride." The chuckle that pushed past his small lips this time was forced, airy, as if someone had snatched it from the depths of Aibou's being and screamed it into submission, and now it was only a fragment of the joy it had once contained. He rubbed his arm, and the not-so-real smile twitched smaller again. "We should get to bed."
Yami almost opened his mouth to speak. But he didn't. He just nodded and tried his best not to look sad.
"Goodnight, Aibou."
The boy breathed out, not heavy or long, and leaned his head in the direction of the one who had once vowed to protect him."Goodnight, mou hitori no boku."
He turned and took one step away, then turned back once more and met Yami's silent gaze.
Aibou swallowed more obviously than Yami knew someone could, and his fingers twitched at his sides as if they were trying to speak. His voice came gentle. The same gentle voice that had been his light, his kindness, in the earliest days of his being.
"If you … need anything, just let me know, okay?"
Yami smiled, and somehow, that smile held more than any words could begin to express.
"Thank you, Aibou."
Aibou lingered for what felt like a long time. He stayed, and he never once looked away. Violet eyes locked in violet eyes, one with a faint smile and the other with the quirked features of one who did not know what was to come next.
But as the closing door of Mutou-san's room upstairs announced the hour, Aibou turned on his heels and scuttled off.
And for a very long time, Yami just sat there and watched the spot where he had been.
It felt wrong.
Not that it wasn't comfortable, because it was, likely more so than he had felt so far, even given the short amount of time he had been able to feel at all. It was soft and thick enough to cushion him without sinking into it like one of those "water beds" he saw on a television commercial that made Mutou-san laugh.
The room was dark, light streaming in from the moon and stars through the window, and he had long since adjusted his arms behind his head so he could stare up at the ceiling. So far, he had counted twenty-seven tiny cracks. He would tell Aibou tomorrow morning.
He had had no trouble sleeping last night. But then again, he couldn't remember falling asleep at all. Just that vague memory of being strangely "out-of-it," as he had once heard Jounouchi-kun describe, and just wanting to lie down. Actually sleeping had never once crossed his mind.
And yet he had. For the first time in three thousand years.
Aibou had told him about dreams sometimes. Not a lot, but enough for him to understand what they were, to even tell himself that he had had them in some distant past. The dreams that filled his first night's sleep had all been vague and unreadable, and he couldn't remember anything of them except blurs of color and rushes of confused emotion. Nothing tangible. Nothing he could examine.
He had been glad to wake up, glad to know that despite all the insanity, he was still here, and Aibou was still with him. Somehow, that made him secure.
The exact security he somehow lacked right now.
He rolled onto his side. Off. He tried his other side. Still off. He lay on his back and his stomach and tried both his sides again, and he stared at the ceiling for several minutes more. Nothing worked. He had known even before he tried that nothing would, but he had to, just for the sake of saying that he hadn't given up without a fight.
Yami didn't have a very concrete idea of the passage of time, likely because of how long he spent in the Puzzle even nowadays. Time was uncertain in the Puzzle, distorted, sometimes shortened and sometimes ridiculously lengthened. So he wasn't sure if he had been lying there ten minutes or several hours. But any sounds of Mutou-san or Aibou moving about upstairs had long ceased, and he knew that by now, whatever time it was, everyone else was asleep.
And he wasn't.
Blast.
There were a million things he knew he could do. He could get up and get himself something to eat, even though he wasn't hungry—food sounded very good after finally getting to taste so much of it for the first time. He could walk around outside the house, and try to be quiet so he didn't wake anyone up. He could look at all the games Mutou-san had stocked in the shop-front. That sounded like the best option, but even that fell short.
He knew he needed to sleep, but he also knew that no matter how much he lay there, staring at the ceiling, it wasn't going to help. Even if he walked around or looked at games or found a nice sweet dessert, he would still be left with that feeling of something being off.
He knew he wasn't going to get rid of it easily. And he most certainly wasn't going to get rid of it here.
Yami pushed himself up on his elbows and got up as slowly and quietly as he could. He rubbed his arms and glanced around the room. Unfamiliar. New. No, he didn't like being here much at all. And he knew why.
He just didn't think he was crazy enough to do anything about it.
But apparently, he was.
Yami rubbed his eyes with his wrist and started toward the stairs. He didn't turn on any of the lights so as not to risk waking anyone, and ended up tripping or slipping on the steps twice on his way up, half from the darkness and his eyes failing to properly adjust and partially just his own yet-unestablished coordination.
The link wasn't there anymore. He had searched for it, especially when he first woke up that very morning. He had tried again and again to think to his long-time dueling partner, but he had never even made him blink. And yet the closer he got to his destination, the more he felt that sense of discomfort ease bit by bit. He breathed quieter and softer and fuller, and he felt somehow that everything was more right.
He could hear no thoughts and feel no emotions. But there was something.
He paused in front of the door he had come to know so well and looked at it, for the first time really looking at it with his own new eyes. It was familiar, and yet so different. So new. Like he was a new-born baby just dropped off into the world without even properly knowing how to walk.
Yami placed a few fingers on the wood of the door, and he imagined he could hear breathing and feel a pulse behind it, even though he knew such a thing was both impossible and just flat-out silly. But he kept his hand there, and he closed his eyes briefly in a final question to himself as to whether this was really what he had to do just to get to sleep. He opened his eyes, and he nodded just a bit.
He turned the knob and opened the door.
Even with all the care he took, the door still creaked and the floorboards still squeaked. He paused after each little sound, not even breathing until he was sure he hadn't woken up the occupant of the room. He stepped quicker once he had established that little noises weren't going to wake him, and once he was a fair distance away, he reached back and pushed the door shut. He turned his head, slow, unsure, and looked toward the bed across the room.
His face had been tense ever since he tried to start falling asleep downstairs. Now it softened as his eyes adjusted to the darkness and saw the resting figure that almost seemed to glow under the moonlight from the ceiling window. The small form, lying on his side, eyes closed and spiky hair sticking out in all directions as it often did when he put his head to the pillow. The blankets hadn't even shifted from their neat place over his body. Peaceful. Quiet. Unlike any other human being he had ever met.
Yami smiled.
Aibou.
He knew the link wouldn't work, but he thought it anyway, and he nearly jumped when Aibou twitched and adjusted himself under the covers. He watched Aibou settle again, and he watched him breathe. It was still strange, not being able to feel him there as a part of himself. But being here brought Yami some odd sense of ease.
Yami took another step forward and noticed a golden gleam on the sheets near Aibou's back. The Puzzle shone brighter the closer he got, as if smiling and waving like an enthusiastic child who had been separated from a parent. For the first time in a while, he noticed the lack of its weight—however inexistent that weight always was—around his neck, and swallowed as he moved his foot.
He walked, bit by bit, until he stood right next to the bed, looking down at its single occupant. Just that one young boy, not quite as innocent and naïve as he had once been, but still shining more than so many others his age.
Yami stood there for a moment. Aibou breathed quiet and slow. He was okay. Despite all of this craziness and all the craziness that was sure to come, Aibou was okay.
And at a leisurely pace but fast enough for him to notice and smile, the remainders of that unfamiliarity and strangeness left Yami's mind, replaced by comfort and safe.
He sighed.
He did not think as he sat down on the floor and found a spot very close to the bed. None of the floorboards creaked, and he settled himself on the carpet, not minding that the room was a little chilly in the night air or that he had no pillow other than his arms on which to rest his head. He looked up at Aibou, smiling just a little, until his eyes grew tired and began to shut of their own accord.
Yami breathed a soft breath, and the nearby presence almost seemed to place a blanket over his mind. The darkness settled in, as did the peace, and Yami let himself forget for a moment that so much was different, and that they had so much to deal with. So many new problems they didn't understand. Right now, Aibou was here and Aibou was safe, and they were together. That was all that mattered.
Yami gave an unnoticeable nod to himself and finally surrendered to the first signs of blurred blackness and swirling colors and images that were not really there, and at last, to sleep.