"Did you know you can take this trail alllll the way up to Aomori Prefecture?"

"Mm. But I'm not walking that far with you."

"Spoilsport!"

"I think without stopping we'd get there sometime in the morning. Next Thursday."

"I mean, I'm down."

"Good luck, then."

"Would you airdrop supplies to me?"

"No."

"Would you follow the TV coverage and cheer me on? At least give me your hat—I can rep Kaiba Corp. on the way. Yuugi Mutou's inspiring journey is sponsored by the Kaiba Corporation—"

"It's below freezing—"

"Not quite."

"Close enough! And I'm not sponsoring your death wish. How much farther is it?"

"It's around here somewhere. Like I said...I dunno for sure. I just wanna see if it's still there."

"Great."

"Oh—hold on. That's pretty. Can you hold this?"

"Mm."

Seto held Yuugi's satchel and watched Yuugi draw. Yuugi rested his sketchbook against the wooden beam of the footbridge and shivered whenever the wind sheared off the river. He used a brush pen; his strokes were broad and careful at the same time.

Yuugi was always trying something new, flexing a different creative muscle, but he was never in your face about it. How many other people knew that Yuugi started drawing last year, apart from Seto and the handful of friends whom he celebrated with handmade cards? Who else knew that he learned from Honda how to play the guitar and composed his own songs? That he could sing?

Yuugi's present subject was a lone loon, floating on the marble river, stark against the pale backdrop and framed nicely by a distant, rusting railroad bridge. Well, no, not lone—a trio of ducks dabbled nearby.

"Yuugi." Seto pointed. "See the ducks?"

Yuugi nodded, glancing between his paper and the river. He murmured, "Hold it...hold it…"

Maybe thirty seconds passed before something caught the ducks' attention and they shuttled downstream. The loon drifted a minute more, but evidently he also had somewhere to be. Yuugi dotted the border with loose foliage and drew back with a flourish.

"That should be good," he declared, beginning to shut his sketchbook, but Seto tapped his shoulder.

"Can I see?"

"Oh, sure—" Seto traded the satchel for the book and admired the piece. Yuugi was a natural. With black ink he'd somehow captured the moody gray sunlight and the shuddering trees, the proud crest of the loon and the ducks' sweet togetherness. There was even Seto's hand in the foreground, gripping the railing, his black glove taut with creases.

Yuugi gestured for the book. The tips of his fingers were red with cold. "I forgot to date it. What's today? The nineteenth?"

"It's the twentieth."

"Thanks!" As he wrote: "Oh." He stopped and looked up. "That's the—"

"First day of spring. But it sure as hell doesn't feel like it—"

"No," said Yuugi. "The day you woke up."

"Huh?"

"The first full day of Duelist Kingdom. The day you woke up."

A gust of wind blew Yuugi's hair back and Seto's bangs into his eyes. They both needed a haircut. Yuugi watched him for a moment, then returned to writing the date. It wasn't until he'd put away his book and pen and pulled his gloves back on that he said, with an eager head-nod toward the trail,

"Keep going?"

Seto started walking. Yuugi trotted alongside him, looking out over the river till the trees obscured it. Seto thought, There was another talent of Yuugi's. Remembering.

Yuugi worried ad nauseam about fill-in-the-blank, but right now two things preoccupied him. One, had he upset Seto by bringing that up? Two, was he sure this was the right way? Was this even the right park? Uh-oh.

Well, one of those worries was approachable at the moment. Like dough, he'd knead it till he worked it out, far as he could. Here goes.

Yuugi nudged Seto's hand with his own. Seto took it. Phew. Yuugi already felt better about things. He still marvelled at how responsive Seto was to physical affection. (And he prided himself on being the person who'd unlocked it. Like a video game level. Powers once reserved for Mokuba, now bestowed upon at least one more character!)

With Seto eyeing him, curious, Yuugi looked up and asked, "Did I hurt you by bringing that up?"

They walked slowly. Seto looked off over Yuugi's head for a minute. At last he said, "...No."

Yuugi kneaded. "Is it something you'd ever wanna talk about?"

"Honestly," said Seto, "I barely knew what year it was till we got back to Japan. There's not much to talk about."

Yuugi made a noise of affirmation. He supposed that sort-of answered a question he'd had for ages and had just excavated from the back of the dusty pantry. (Was it even still good? Should he finally throw it out?) How lucid had Seto been then? Namely, did he remember…?

Ugh. If he wanted to know, he oughta ask. Seto seemed open. Seto liked his drawing. Carpe diem, or whatever the hell.

"Can I...can I ask you? Just one more thing about it." He squeezed Seto's hand; his ancient timidity rattled its bones a bit. But Seto just shrugged.

"If you want to."

Dammit, Yuugi! Why are you nervous? There's literally nobody around. He literally gave you permission. EEE.

Yuugi swallowed. "Well..."

"Where one goes to draw water." Seto's lip quirked—he was teasing him. Yuugi huffed and pushed against his shoulder, but he smirked, too.

"Give me a sec! God."

"Ask away," said Seto loftily. "I can answer most questions. I'm pretty smart, y'know."

"And so humble."

"No need for humility at my level—"

"Would you shut up for one second?" Yuugi was grinning now. He was grateful for this (what he knew was deliberate) diffusion. Seto looked affronted.

"You're asking me? To shut up?"

"Oh, true. Hm—pretend you're speechless 'cuz I just handed your ass to you in a duel or something."

"Okay then. Why pretend, I can pull up a video if you want—"

"That's alright. I remember. Plenty of memories."

"Har har."

"Okay, but seriously," said Yuugi. Seto sobered; waited. He was good at listening (when he wanted to be). Yuugi held a stinging mouthful of cold air as long as he could. Then he exhaled, asking in the rush, "Do you remember anything from when you were, er, in the hospital? In the coma, I mean?"

" 'The' coma?"

"Or 'a' coma, whatever. I mean, because I—well, I visited you a few times, and I just wondered...if you remembered that." There. Was that so bad?

...Were those cobalt eyes so sad because they didn't remember, or because they did?

Yes and no.

No, because he had never been able to interpret the churning dreamscape that his coma—the Mind Crush—had been. The mind had indeed been crushed to perfection. Total powder. Just scoop it all up and save it in a jar: his body, and see what you end up with: him.

Yes, because now and only now that Yuugi mentioned it, his mind threw forth granular images, tossed them like gobs of flour or handfuls of sand. Yuugi's voice, before anything, high-pitched and halting. His hair, that wild shape, falling like a star through the firmament...his hand, the pressure of his hand over his. Hello, farewell, something in between, maybe. See you soon.

But this could be his mind playing tricks on him, supplying via hindsight what he wished he could tell Yuugi. What could he tell Yuugi? Just asking that question seemed to have stressed Yuugi out. He was gnawing on his glove. Gross.

Oh. There was one thing. Still secondhand, but something.

"I don't...remember your visits," Seto said. He went on quickly, "But I was told that the first thing I said after waking up was your name."

Yuugi looked surprised. "Really?"

"That's what they told me." Repeated it several times while gazing from his manor window, like the cover of the sappiest romantic novel of all time...but that wasn't relevant to this discussion.

"Huh." Yuugi's thoughtful breaths rose in plumes. He turned a melancholy smile onto Seto, welcoming his commiseration. "You probably meant Atem, huh?"

"No." This Seto knew for sure. "I meant you."

"But…" Now Yuugi looked almost scared. Scared of what? "...why?"

Scared of the "why?" But this had no "why." This was.

Before Seto could answer, Yuugi's mood shifted. Something caught his eye.

"Sorry, hold on. I think this is it!" He released Seto's hand and jogged toward a narrow, half-hidden path that shot off below them. Seto took wide strides after him, swiping barren branches out of his way.

"Good, I thought you were making this up," he called.

"I think this is it!" Yuugi said again. "Wait...is it…" He slowed at the bottom, where the path—surely no more than a deer path—ended at a quiet, reed-wound snatch of riverbank. "...Yes! Seto, come look!"

Seto crunched over walnut husks and long-dead leaves and knelt beside his best friend. Near the base of the walnut tree, peeking out of the yellow reeds, the word "TREASURE" had been carved in hiragana. It had swelled quite a bit—strokes overlapped, and the characters crowded each other. Scarcely legible.

Yuugi pulled a glove off with his teeth and lay his hand against the wood. He beamed with nostalgia. "Wow. It's still here…"

"I take it you carved it?"

"M-hm. I used to come down here with Grandpa...this was, I dunno, when I was six, maybe? I had to ask him how to spell it. See, the 'ka' is messed up…"

"It's hard to tell," said Seto.

"Yeah, it's so overgrown." Yuugi gazed into his memories. "We'd come back to check on it. I used to leave 'treasures' for people to find...I always hoped someone would take them and leave me something."

Seto adjusted his long legs. "Did they?"

Yuugi shrugged. "My stuff would be gone, but no one ever left me anything."

"Typical."

Yuugi laughed. "I'm sure it just washed into the river. It was junk—pieces of candy and stuff. God, Grandpa just let me litter, huh."

"Can't trust that old man."

"Lemme tell you."

Though it was cold, it was precious there in their hideaway by the water, so hushed and secluded it felt almost like a storybook. They shifted to sit side-by-side on a gnarled root. Yuugi produced his sketchbook and began a portrait of his treasure tree. Tucked between the gentle sweeps of the brush pen, Yuugi's rustling coat, and the lapping current, Seto might've fallen asleep. He felt so at peace.

After how long? Yuugi said, "...I'm curious." He capped the pen and passed Seto the sketchbook. "I wanna check...see if anything's there."

"Couldn't hurt," said Seto, not paying much attention. He was greedy for the sketchbook, already easing pages apart and admiring the drawings. Yuugi half-crawled to the treasure tree. He dug through the dry reeds, clumping them in his fists like sheaves and combing the ground beneath.

Seto turned pages. Some of these subjects he knew well. The Domino skyline appeared a few times...Kame Game Shop in winter, complete with a bundled Sugoroku shoveling the snow...copies of works from the art museum. There was Jounouchi, sitting in a booth somewhere, probably Burger World. There was Jounouchi again...

But as Seto turned the pages, the sketches began to give him pause. There was a wedding scene. The couple resembled Yuugi and Jounouchi. Perhaps a daydream? Seto knew they'd been dating for three months or so, maybe four. Still, the rest of the sketches were from life. This one stood out.

Stranger yet, one sketch was surely a room of his mansion that Yuugi had never been in. That he knew of. Right? Seto hadn't brought him down there yet. Unless someplace else had a bar with the same backsplash…

There was a roller coaster...but it wasn't from Kaiba Land. No, Seto knew that coaster—that was From the Abyss, Aqua Star's premier ride. A classic. But Aqua Star…

Aqua Star had closed. Years ago. It was torn down. It was gone.

Something sank in him. Yuugi rummaged through the reeds, just outside his vision. For all the world, it sounded like a furtive predator.

SNAP

SNAP

SNAP

A flash of white light. The boy gazed upward in awe.

"There you are!"

The White Dragon alighted before him, bowing her head. Her eyes were clear. She was crying.

"It's you! Right?!"

Yes, dear one. Yes, it's me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

"It's okay! I missed you!"

I missed you, too.

The boy hugged the dragon. He showed her the puzzle—hot with light, so close to completion.

"Look—I got three more."

Well done!

"And there's only one left. But I lost it."

Oh, no. We'll look for it.

"How did you get back to normal?"

Your friend called me back. He sent me back to you.

"My friend?"

Your friend Yuugi.

The spoken name made the puzzle glow in the boy's hands.

"Yuugi…?"

Yes. He was fighting for you.

"For me?"

Yes. You and—

...

"Who?"

You don't know?

"Me and who?"

The White Dragon couldn't say. If he didn't know, she couldn't tell him. If he hadn't found it, she couldn't give hints. She could see his agitation, how the answer just eluded him. Surely, surely he must know...

"Tell me. Who?!"

I—

Behind them, the darkness began to melt—not exactly, not quite, but there was no better word for it. The boy staggered backward. The White Dragon steadied him with her tail.

Behind the darkness was gray, solid gray, blinding gray, falling into the shape of the sky.

"What's that?" whispered the boy.

She didn't know. Listen, she said.

He did, and he heard it—fainter than his breath at first. A breeze that stirred mere chaff; an imperceptible splash...a rustling.

"Hey!"

A duck flushed out of the reeds, flapping madly. Seto flung the sketchbook aside and tensed, glowering at the bushes, where as he suspected it wasn't Yuugi who emerged, it was a fearsome—

—little boy?

A little brown-haired boy who looked a whole whole lot like—

"Seto, right?" The boy clapped a hand against his chest. "Me too."

What the hell—Seto spluttered, "W-where's Yuugi?!"

"You know Yuugi?! Me too!" the boy cried, starting forward, and Seto scrambled backward, dunking one hand into the icy river.

"What—how do you—"

"He left three pieces for me! He sent my dragon back to me!"

"D-dragon?!"

"I'm almost done," the boy said, and Seto saw what he held, a golden orb, missing a chunk off the top like someone had dropped it and dented it. "I'm so close, but I need the last piece. Do you have it?"

Piece? Like a puzzle? "I don't—"

The boy's face fell. "I thought you'd have it," he said.

"I don't know what you're talking about—"

"Oh, were you drawing them?" the boy interrupted, pointing down at the sketchbook where it lay open in a pile of debris.

Seto couldn't keep up. His heart hammered in his chest, his pulse in his head. "N-no, that was...drawing who?!"

"Them." The boy swung his outstretched arm and pointed across the river. "It looks like them."

Seto dared to look.

Across the river was a dock. Two people, a mother and child, sat bundled together, legs swinging over the edge. She wore a green jacket, the child a green hat.

He knew that jacket. He knew that hat.

The pair stood up, a little strangely, waddling like a duck, she was pregnant.

She was pregnant with—

PIECE #16: YUUGI

Doctor's Note: You know who ❤️ This chapter might be my absolute favorite. Thank you, as always, for reading! - Dr. MP