Hello readers and reviewers. Here is chapter 24 of Survivor. This chapter is mostly Yugo centered and You will get to see all the emotional suffering he's going through.
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V.
Chapter 24:
It had been a month since Rin was lost and Yugo was not getting better. He spent most of his time alone grieving and was refusing the help his friends tried to give him. It didn't help that a lot of the academy staff were cruel to the point of not having a heart. A lot of the juvenile officers tormented him about his girlfriend dying and told him to just give up. The instructors told him plainly and sometimes rudely to get over her and get back to his lessons and training. Sometimes Yugo's friends would be there to help him out and tell the bullies off but not always.
"If living without her is so bad and hard end it. Why don't you go to your room and put yourself out of your misery."
This is what Yuto and Yuri heard when they walked into the rec room. Yugo was sitting on the floor in front of the couch the group usually occupied. His knees were drawn up to his chest and his arms were wrapped around them with his head laying on top of them. Leaning on the back of a chair facing Yugo and tormenting him was juvenile officer Grizzlepike Jones.
"What do you think you're doing?" Yuri demanded, immediately coming to Yugo's defence.
"I'm simply trying to help a cadet who is suffering," Grizzlepike told him.
"You are bullying him into ending his own life. That's not helping him that's being cruel," Yuto said from where he knelt next to Yugo, wrapping his arms protectively around his distraught friend.
"He doesn't want to live without his precious Rin-Rin. Who are you to tell him he has to?" Grizzlepike asked.
"He's grieving. He needs help to deal with that not someone telling him cruelly to kill himself," Yuto shot back.
"Who are you to tell him he to end his life?" Yuri asked Grizzlepike.
"Someone who really doesn't care," Grizzlepike replied back.
"Then leave him alone and let those who do care deal with him," Yuri warned.
"Don't talk to him, don't approach him, don't even look at him," Yuto added to the warning.
"Starting now," Yuri finished.
Grizzlepike backed away as Yuto and Yuri ganged up on him as a team. He glared at the two of them for a while then at Yugo. Focusing his eyes back on Yuto and Yuri he took a few more steps backwards before turning and starting to walk away.
"You better remember your place cadets," Grizzlepike turned around and warned before turning away again and leaving the rec room.
After Grizzlepike left Yuri and Yuto both reached out to Yugo. Yuto pulled him up and into a hug before Yuri gave him one. They took Yugo to his room and waited with him for Sylvio, who would soon hear about the incident, to come in.
"What happened?" Sylvio wanted to know after hearing the rumors going around from other cadets who had been in the rec room during the incident and had left either left during or soon after.
Yuri angrily told him about the encounter with Grizzlepike Jones, one of the newest and cruelest of the juvenile officers with only Iggy Arlo and Aster Phoenix being more feared. He also mentioned how Grizzlepike had told Yugo what he thought he should do.
"That jerk," Sylvio spat out.
"We took care of it. We told juvenile officer Jones off," Yuto told Sylvio.
"I enjoyed telling him off too," Yuri admitted. "I really did."
"Thank you. Both of you," Yugo spoke for the first time since Yuto and Yuri had found him in his desperate need of help. "Now leave I want…need…to be alone right now."
"I'm not leaving," Yuri stated looking Yugo right in the eyes.
"I'm not either," Yuto insisted.
"You have three of us here," Sylvio told him.
"Please guys. Just go."
"No!" was the response the three friends simultaneously gave him.
Yugo turned his back on them. Yuri looked at Sylvio then nodded to the open door. Sylvio knew that was a signal to close the door. And he did. At that moment Yugo's shoulders started shaking. His friends heard faint crying coming from him.
"Yugo let go," Yuto told him.
Yuto sat down on Sylvio's bed waiting to see if Yugo would finally allow himself to be weak in front of them. Yuri sat on Yugo's bed. Sylvio leaned on the door to prevent anyone else from simply opening the door and coming in.
"Yugo it's alright," Yuri encouraged.
"No…it-it's not."
"You can't be strong all the time. Sometimes you have to be weak to grow stronger," Yuto said softly.
Yugo fought hard to not break down in front of the three of them. But the more he fought the harder it was to keep from doing just that. He kept his back to them but they still knew he was breaking. He had three of them right now he could seek comfort from if he'd only let himself do that. Yuri who watched him with concern without any pride or judgement in his pink eyes. Yuto who held sorrow, concern and pain in his eyes but there was also something else the hope that he could save his friend. Then there was Sylvio who was concerned and saddened and held what looked like fading hope.
"Yuri, Sylvio, Yuto," Yugo whispered weakly as he turned to face his friends with tear filled eyes and tear stained cheeks.
"Let go Yugo," Yuto encouraged. "We want to help you but you have to let us."
Yugo could no longer keep himself together. He threw himself at Yuto and broke down uncontrollably. His arms wrapped around Yuto's shoulders and his face buried in Yuto's shirt. Yugo sobbed hard for the loss of the person who was most important to him.
"It's okay. You'll be alright. Everything will be fine," Yuto continued talking soothingly to him as he wrapped him in a protective embrace rubbing circles on his back.
Yuto glanced at both Yuri and Sylvio. He then gestured with his head and eyes to the door again. Yuri nodded in understanding and got up from the bed in front of his friends. Sylvio stood up from the door and grabbed the knob.
"We'll leave him to you for now Yuto," Sylvio told Yuto as he quietly left the room.
"I'll tell the others you're with Yugo right now and we should let you handle things for right now," Yuri whispered quietly as he placed a hand on Yugo's back in comfort before following Sylvio out of the room and closing the door behind them.
For an hour Yugo cried and sobbed against Yuto. Yuto didn't judge him, didn't complain. He spoke softly to his grieving friend trying to make him feel somewhat better. He continued supporting Yugo the only way he could hoping it was enough to prevent those horrid thoughts Grizzlepike put into his head. It was another hour before Yugo was able to speak. This was the time for Yuto to ask him why he had finally decided to come out of his room willingly after a whole month.
"I decided to try and cope and carry on with my life," Yugo said. "After this though. I don't want to be here anymore. These people are mean, cruel. They don't understand that I loved her. She was my reason to live."
"Keep living. For her," Yuto encouraged.
"I can't. It's just too hard," Yugo insisted. "I've tried."
"Try harder."
The boys sat in silence for a while. Yugo lost in his painful thoughts and Yuto at a loss of what to do or say to help Yugo. Suddenly the door opened and Sylvio walked in. Yuto glanced at the clock and realised it was light's out.
"Shay and Kite are back from solitary confinement," he told Yugo and Yuto as he got up.
Yuto headed to the door. He hesitated for a few seconds and glanced back at Yugo. Sylvio was here though and it was lights out now. Sylvio would have to be the one to help Yugo until tomorrow.
"I'll be able to help him most of the time but during lights out it's going to have to be you," Yuto informed
Sylvio simply nodded mutely. Yuto slipped out of the room and Sylvio quietly shut the door. Yuto made his way very slowly, quietly and carefully to his room. By some miracle he wasn't caught. He slipped into his room and shut the door behind him.
There you go. Yugo has finally opened up. He's tried to come out of his room and continue his life. He's latched on to one of his friends. Will it be enough to save him? keep reading and reviewing to find out. Until next time.