Coming to, his first thought was that someone had walloped him in the head with a frying pan, dropped him in a pit of molasses, and then tossed him down a stairwell. His next thought was, though it was dark and he was in his bed, he could not recall ever having put himself there.
Yugi rolled over and checked his alarm clock. Morning, 3:00AM to be precise. His hand fumbled with the bedside lamp, grasping for the switch until he managed to turn it on. The light came at his eyes with a knife.
It took a minute to blink away the pain and adjust to the brightness. The first thing he saw was a glass of water on the nightstand. He swiped the glass, chugging it to quench his parched throat and cottonmouth. Upon setting the cup down, his attention was drawn to the neon pink sticky note stuck to the corner of the nightstand.
Yugi picked it up and read it.
'Please eat something. I am resting, Aibou.'
The hand holding the note fell against the mattress as a sluggish stream of memories worked their way to the forefront of his sleep-addled brain. He'd been at work. He'd felt like calling in sick that day, but weighed down by guilt he'd come into work anyway, determined to make up for the time he'd missed. And then… nothing.
Well not nothing. Albeit hazy, he recalled eyes. Burning, haunted, golden eyes. Then he was home, and the memory, or more so feeling, of being tucked into bed with a pleasant coolness draped across his forehead clawed its way into his mind. He looked beside him to see the used cold compress on the pillows, fallen off at some point.
"I LIVE IN HERE, YUGI."
He touched the puzzle that hung heavily around his neck, his fingers tracing the pattern of the eye.
His mind swam with pain, fog, and bemusement; but it was his stomach that protested the loudest, interrupting his thoughts with a harsh gurgling.
Yugi pulled himself out of bed and nearly stepped on Yami's Speak & Spell. The hard plastic connecting with his socked foot gave him a start. He only just managed to stumble away from it without bringing harm to either of them.
He noted the oversized nightshirt he was dressed in and probably would've never chosen to wear to bed. It was like his backup's backup of sleepwear. Dragging the shirt off he replaced it with his set of baby blue, Sonic the Hedgehog themed, sleep pants and button down. Once comfortable, he plodded into the bathroom to relieve himself, wash up, and brush his teeth.
When he worked his way to the kitchen he dragged out a bag of bread and popped two slices into the toaster. He eyed the eggs in the fridge for a moment and decided against them, not feeling up to managing a frying pan. In the end he slathered his toast with some jam, made a cup of tea, and ate the meager breakfast at the table.
Nothing tasted good, but it quelled his angry stomach.
With his hunger sated and the haze of sleep lifted he was finally able to think a little clearer. He touched the puzzle at his chest again, its golden surface was cold, hard and very real. The eye pattern on the front was so intimately familiar to his fingers that had traced the pattern countless times. Sucking in a steadying breath he called, "Yami?"
When nothing happened, he tried again, this time louder. His eyes scanned all the shadows around the kitchen and dining area—including his own—looking for movement. But it was something slithering over his hand that had him choking back a near scream as he sprang out of his seat.
Darkness poured out of the eye of his millennium puzzle, spilling out over the floor like black blood before coalescing into a spikey-haired mass. As if in slow motion, the shape pulled itself from the floor. A shadow man coming to stand before Yugi, golden eyes manifesting in thin half-moons that looked downcast.
Yugi looked between his puzzle and Yami several times before cradling the pyramid shaped pendant in his hands again.
"Out of respect, I've refrained from asking you things that I thought were too personal or disrespectful. But given recent circumstances I think I'm entitled to answers now."
Silence met him. Yugi looked up from the puzzle to see Yami still standing before him, his head down-turned in what appeared to be resignation. Oh, he doesn't have his Speak & Spell.
"The Speak & Spell is in the bedroom if you'd like to get it. I can meet you in there."
Yami didn't immediately move. It was not until Yugi cleared the table and left the kitchen that Yami fell into step behind him. Following Yugi to the bedroom as a shadow would.
Yugi dropped onto his bed and pulled his knees to his chest.
Yami sat on the floor before him, picking up his Speak & Spell as he did.
"What do you mean you live in here?" Yugi gestured to the puzzle at his chest, hidden behind his bent knees.
Yami's fingers tapped the keys on the toy computer without haste.
"THE PUZZLE IS MY PRISON."
"So, you aren't an apartment ghost at all."
Yami shook his head.
"Then what are you?"
"I AM AN ANCIENT SPIRIT TETHERED TO THIS WORLD BY THE MILLENNIUM PUZZLE." A pause, and more tapping of keys. "YOU SET ME FREE AT THE AGE OF SIXTEEN WHEN YOU FIRST SOLVED THE PUZZLE."
"What do you mean by that? That you've been with me since I was sixteen? Why haven't I seen you before? Where have you been this entire time? Why show yourself now? What do you mean the puzzle is your prison? Why are you imprisoned?
Yami's edges started to lose their shape, quivering as he tried to type, but his hands kept flinching above the keys with every question Yugi fired off.
He shut his eyes, clenched the sides of the Speak & Spell so hard the plastic creaked, then tossed the toy on the carpet.
Yami got up from the floor and dropped to one knee before Yugi. His black hands reached for the puzzle behind Yugi's knees in a silent request.
Yugi dropped his knees and held the puzzle out to him without hesitation. Watched as Yami's fingers closed over his own.
-Come with me, come come come-
An impression called to him. An entreaty that wasn't quite words, but still tugged at Yugi's thoughts. It compelled him to shut his eyes, and he acquiesced. He felt the pull on his consciousness and allowed the spirit to guide him to wherever it was they were going.
It felt like sinking, not the sudden stomach-drop of falling, but the dream-like quality of drifting.
The ambiance of his bedroom and the city outside his apartment faded, replaced by a hollow silence. He wasn't sure when his feet met solid ground, it wasn't jarring, just an eventual realization that he was standing.
"Yugi," a smooth, low timbre greeted him. It sent pleasurable chills down his neck. "You can open your eyes now."
Yami's hands that had remained clasped over his own and the puzzle, tightened in reassurance.
Yugi did as instructed and opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the puzzle, and brown hands that gripped his own with unfamiliar warmth.
He followed those hands to arms clad in a set of pajamas identical to his own, a chest, shoulders, a slender neck of brown skin, a sharp jaw, and then angular eyes the color of blood.
Yugi's heart skipped a few precious beats as he looked into those stunning eyes.
The man standing in front of him was so similar to him that it felt uncanny. The hair, the body, down to even the build of the face, all Yugi's… but wrong. As if the person before him had stolen his visage and twisted it. Little things, like how Yami's height seemed distorted. Or how his hair was wilder, streaks of blonde bangs threading back among his black and wine-tipped hair spikes. But the most striking differences were Yami's dark skin tone and intense red eyes.
This is Yami..?
A painful swallow left Yugi's throat feeling dry.
"I would like to answer your questions now," Yami said in a soft low cadence. The sound created goosebumps on Yugi's skin. "I thought it easier to speak with you like this, where I have a voice."
That prompted Yugi to look about them, curious eyes scanning the interior of the room they were in. Walls of sandy colored stone boxed them in, with thick black shadows obscuring the corners and what might have been exits. Along the walls from floor to ceiling were hieroglyphs. The room was entirely empty except for an enormous throne made of intricately carved stone; it was located in the center on a low-raised square platform.
"Where are we?" Yugi finally found the words to ask.
Yami placed a hand on Yugi's chest over his heart, the sudden touch sending pleasant thrills over his skin. "We are in my soul room, it exists simultaneously within the puzzle and your heart."
Can he feel the way that heart races beneath his hand now?
"This place is supposed to be a manifestation of my heart and mind, an expression of me. But as you can see…" he removed his hand to gesture about them at the haunted surroundings.
"It looks like a tomb," Yugi finished for him. An involuntary shiver accompanied the declaration.
"If you leave this room it becomes an unsolvable labyrinth."
An even stronger shudder worked its way down Yugi's spine as he dared to glance into one of the pitch black exits.
"Please," Yami captured Yugi's attention again and gestured towards the only place to sit in the entire room, the throne. "Have a seat and we can talk."
Yugi tentatively allowed Yami to guide him to the center of the room. He hesitated before the throne, allowing his fingers to trail over the arm rests first. The stone wasn't what he expected, while it looked cold, it wasn't. The initial touch had registered the way his mind thought it should, but every sensation after that was just stone, neither warm nor cold. Very much the way things felt in a dream state. He snuck another glance at Yami before he finally sank down onto the seat. It was massive, the back rest alone towered above his head by more than four feet. It was also hard, but not entirely uncomfortable. He couldn't imagine himself spending hours sitting in this throne though.
"Isn't this yours?" He looked up at Yami in curiosity.
For a briefest second he caught a look of reverence shining in Yami's eyes, watching him sit in that throne. But then it was gone, replaced by a mask of stoicism. "Yes, it is mine. But as you are my guest here, I would like you to be comfortable."
"So…" Yugi cast his gaze back to his lap and picked some lint from his pajama pants.
"To answer your questions from before, I have been with you since you were sixteen. From the moment you completed the puzzle, you became my host and I became attached to you through the puzzle."
Yugi jerked his head up again, eyes scrunching in skepticism, "then why have you never-"
"I never showed myself to you, because I was confused at first. Please understand that you woke me from an unending void, set my consciousness free. I experienced consciousness for the first time in eons through you. I have no memory of my past self before I was imprisoned. Only clues gleaned from my own soul and the history of the puzzle," Yami gestured to their surroundings as he said this. "For awhile I thought I was you. I do not now, of course," he hastily added, turning his head to the side when color touched his cheeks. "I realized we were separate souls within months after you solved the puzzle. But at that point I had already come to accept your appearance as my own, and… I kept it."
"Well you aren't exactly like me," Yugi pointed out, his eyes dragging over Yami with a look of appraisal.
Yami studied his own hand, the brown skin a contrast to Yugi's. "Yes, I took a few liberties that made me feel more comfortable."
"You said you realized we were separate only months after I solved the puzzle, so why didn't you ever show yourself after that?"
"I was… afraid." He spoke the last word just above a whisper, like it was shameful to admit. "I thought if you ever found out about me that you would discard the puzzle."
Yugi cocked his head to the side, frowning, "you must have learned enough about me by then to realize I wouldn't."
Yami whipped about to face him, red eyes going hard. Piercing. "You do not know what I have done. What I did in that time when I thought we were one in the same."
The sudden sharpness in Yami's tone made Yugi flinch, his back pressing into the stone behind him. "What you've done? What have you done?"
"People used to hurt you…bad people. Whenever you were in danger, not just any danger but times when I thought the situation out of your control, I would assume control of your body to protect you. I would punish those who would transgress upon your soul." Yami looked at his own hands while he admitted this, stared at them as if he could see the blood they were soaked in.
"The black outs…"
"Yes, when I take possession."
Yugi dropped his gaze and began fidgeting with the puzzle; a nervous habit that he had no intention of breaking. "So you live in my puzzle…or in my heart…and you take possession of my body when I am in trouble…and use it to…hurt people. Is that why so many people around me have ended up admitted to mental hospitals?"
"Yes."
A long silence stretched between them, Yugi continued to clutch the puzzle but stared past it at his lap. His thumbs made small circles over the surface of the gold.
"Do you still hurt people?"
The spirit's expression scrunched in pain at that. "I want to say it has been several years…but I placed a curse on Mr. Mashima when he tried to hit you with a car. He deserved death, but I could not bring myself to it. I wanted to be better."
Yugi attempted to reconcile this in his mind. He couldn't help but hold Yami's actions up against Seto's and compare them. They've hurt people.
Yami tried to shove his hands in his pockets, only to realize he was still in the Sonic pajamas, which had no pockets. He opted to fidget with the cuffs of the nightshirt instead. "I acknowledge that my secrecy was dishonest, and my actions have brought harm to many people. Pain and suffering you cannot even fathom. But I do not regret it, I would do it all again to protect you. My only regret is that I waited so long to reveal myself to you."
Yugi opened his mouth to speak but Yami held up a hand. In a solemn voice he continued, "if you decide to be rid of me, do so. I would not stop you. All that I ask is that you do not give the puzzle to someone else. Anyone unworthy of it will be destroyed by it, and I do not wish to be attached to the soul of another. Not right now. You may give the puzzle to your grandfather, he understands its power and the secrets it guards; he will keep it safe until the time I am ready for a new host."
Grandpa knows about the puzzle? Has he always known? He knew his grandfather was a man with a complicated past. He possessed a wealth of knowledge and secrets deeper than most; But would he have actually given his grandson an object with a dangerous spirit inside it? Even knowing what it was capable of?
"And what if I don't want anyone else to be your host?"
Yami flinched, but kept his gaze downcast. "If you wish me no host at all, that is fair. It is what I deserve for what I have-"
"No," Yugi tried with a fraction more force, managing to work up the nerve to fix the puzzle spirit with a pointed look. "What if I don't want anyone to be your host, but me?"
Yami's head snapped up so fast that the action looked painful. His blood colored eyes fixed on Yugi, an ethereal glow burning like smoldering embers within.
Yugi couldn't maintain eye contact, the intensity was too much, so he held up the millennium puzzle and said, "when I solved the puzzle, I made a wish for friends. At the time I thought those friends were Jonouchi and Honda, but I guess they weren't the only friends it gave me." A half smile tilted his mouth. "You weren't the friend I was expecting to receive…but maybe I needed you, and I cherish your friendship nonetheless."
"Yugi…" Yami breathed out his name, taking half a step towards him before he caught himself.
"Do I have to black out?"
The spirit blinked. "What?"
"When you take control, do I have to black out? Everything isn't black for you when I'm in control, is it?"
"I…" Yami scratched his ear before admitting, "…have not tried before. I do not have to suppress your consciousness, so there is no reason why you could not remain so."
Yugi sat up and squared his shoulders. "Going forward, I'd like us both to be conscious. I want to be aware of what you do with my body."
"Alright."
"I'd like to avoid hurting people, if at all possible," he added. "You said yourself you wanted to do better and I believe you can."
"I understand." Yami sounded sincere at least, when he agreed to this.
"So," Yugi relaxed his posture again, "I s'pose the most immediate issue is how I got home yesterday. I'm guessing you took possession and brought us home?"
This time Yami ruffled the shorter hairs at the back of his neck and found something more interesting in the corner of the room to look at, "Not exactly…"
An inquiring brow arched at the evasive response.
"Your body would not stay conscious; the fever was too much and I couldn't retain control. Seto Kaiba will be contacting you soon… about the shadow man that kidnapped you and carried you out of Kaiba Corp."
Yugi stared at him now, completely dumbstruck. "You did not…"
"I am sorry," Yami began, his arms dropping to his sides and balling into fists. "It was rash. I panicked. I tried the phone and it wanted a face, and I did not have a face to give it. I tried to get Kaiba, but he was not in his office, and I cannot venture too far from you. I could not trust anyone else with your safety, so I took you home myself. You mean the…I care about you. You are…special to me."
"I guess I can understand." Yugi be lying if he said that Yami's words hadn't struck him so deep in the core that he ached. But Yugi refused to let his heart run away from him and assume deeper meaning than face value. "You need to keep a healthy host, right?"
"Yugi, do not misunderstand me." Yami strode up to the throne, stopping just before Yugi. He placed a foot on the seat beside his knee and bent so close that Yugi thought their noses might brush. Close enough that Yami's bangs fell forward to dust his lashes. "Your health and well being are important to me. But I care far more about you than as just a mere host. You bring the light back into my world. You who give the shadows a name, and flip my entire perspective of myself upside down."
Yugi didn't know how to respond to that. Couldn't respond to that. His heart was crashing against his ribcage. His brain kept running circles, putting on repeat the words Yami said. But a much smaller part—the part that housed his courage and impulsivity—was laser focused on the fact that if he just sat up straight, he'd be kissing Yami.
And that didn't bother him as much as it should have given that Yami looked like him. In fact, it really didn't bother him at all. The realization washed over him that, despite everything he'd been told today, it didn't make him like Yami any less.
Right at this moment, he liked Yami so much more.
Opting for a less impulsive action, Yugi bumped his nose against the spirit's. "I care about you too, and I'm not gonna give the puzzle away." Like someone had snapped on a light, Yami's third eye appeared on his forehead, blazing and bright. Yugi's grip tightened on the pyramid as he continued, "I think it's even more special now."
The wide-eyed stare Yami gave him was akin to someone who'd been given a handful of cold-pudding.
Color darkened the skin of his cheeks as Yami was stumbled back in a rush, retreating a good three feet before he tried stuffing his hands into his non-existent pockets again, failed, and instead turned his back on Yugi while crossing his arms over his chest.
A warmth bled into Yugi, a warmth that had already been filling his heart, making it race, sending his mind swimming and palms sweating. But it grew hotter and more intense than he'd ever felt it before, as if he were caught in a maelstrom of love and fire that threatened to consume him.
Then came fear. It came rushing in with a cloud anxiety so thick it almost drowned Yugi. Everything became oppressive. The emotions enveloping him were trying to suffocate him. It wasn't pleasant anymore. He had to shut it all out before he lost himself.
Somehow, he managed to erect a flimsy barrier in his head. It wasn't a lot. Just a shoji door against a typhoon. But it was enough to regain a shred of himself.
He knew the moment they both realized they'd been in an emotional feedback loop because Yami started with a jump, and suddenly something between them snapped shut like a steel trap. All the emotions from before were gone, the overwhelming affection, the fear, the anxiety. Until Yugi was left with only his own emotions. Still burning warm and hot and fuzzy, but a little rattled.
Yami snuck a glance at him and his expression was unreadable.
Oh this is a lot to unpack.
"We're partners," Yugi began in a low tone. Hoping that it sounded soothing and not throaty and wanting. The memory of what he'd felt was still washing over him. "Whatever mess you created at Kaiba Corp, we'll face it together." The change in subject was as much for Yami's benefit as his own. They were caught in a knot of tension and complicated emotions, and this wasn't the ideal time to be sorting it all out.
"Partners…" Yami repeated the word.
"You'll help me right? To stand up for myself to Seto, and if there ends up being like a…press conference or something, you can take possession and help me not dissolve into a puddle of anxiety."
"I can certainly try. Although my talents lie in taking action. I am not so capable when it comes to conversations and speeches."
"We just spent the last…" Yugi made a circular gesture with his hand, "…however long it's been, having a heavy conversation. I think we can manage."
Yami came back to himself, drawing his effortless confidence around him like a cloak. His eyes still troubled but the corner of his mouth quirked in the barest of smiles.
"So," Yugi cast a look about the tomb room, "does time still pass while we're here?"
"Yes. Your body is in a state of slumber while we are here."
"We should probably be getting back before Seto storms my apartment, huh? We can leave right? Without solving the unsolvable labyrinth?"
Yami smiled for real then, endearment softening all his features. "Of course."