Disclaimer: I do not own YGO.

Inspiration: "Two Ghosts," Harry Styles.

Scent: Cardamusc by Hermes

Photo: Sunsets over the California coast. Calm breeze. Shadows and ghosts in the corners of the frame.

...

They stood as two shadows without a common home.

The sky is gold above the marbled California coastline. Jagged cliffs dipped into the horizon below, falling into the dark blue sea. They're two figures in the distance, together, but reaching for each other only when the other isn't looking and resolutely separate otherwise.

He admits he misses her sometimes, when the light falls just so over the edge of the water, when he's out and alone wandering the forest trail, when he's hovering between the edge of sleep and waking up, when the light creeps through the almost-closed curtain between blond bangs. It's only sometimes that he misses her just a little bit, because it's not healthy to miss someone that much, and he's moved on, really, to better people and better things where he's supposed to be instead of where he was just renting a body for a little while.

The life they shared so briefly years ago feels like a whisper of a dream long gone; reality is the cold dark stones beneath his feet, the crash of waves along the shore, and the warmth in his heart when he sees and touches the new life he's built here.

Oh, but what a dream it was.

He had never loved someone like that before, with the passion, determination, and curiosity of meeting a like-minded soul for the first time. He knows he won't ever love someone like that again, either. Perhaps that's a good thing; perhaps not. Either way, that part of his heart— his soul— belongs to her, and he couldn't get it back if he tried. It's tied to her like a metaphysical thing, a shadow of sorts, and she's always going to have that bit of him when she moves and eats and breathes and just is.

There's a part of him that's learned how to love since then— not with the innocent hope of a young boy, but with the tempered expectations of a mature man. He knows how to fight now without resorting to storming out, how to love now without fumbling in the dark, and, most of all, he knows how much it can hurt when she's not around even when she promised to be there, always.

They're both ghosts haunted by and haunting each other...and refusing to admit it. She claims she's moved on and accepted the fact that he was never really hers to begin with; he claims he always was hers but she was never his because she wanted more, more, more than what he was capable of giving.

He says he moved on. Has actually moved on. Isn't looking back (much).

She says she's staying still. Hasn't actually moved at all from where their respective shadows haunted the cliffside. Is always looking forward (on a good day).

He's proud of her and she's proud of him. Of where they've been together, they say nothing. Of where they're going, they agree to say nothing. Of what went wrong, they agree that nothing is worth saying. Of the why and how and what-if, well, sometimes, the light hits their shadows sometimes and their reflections touch hands, ever so briefly, before the breeze ruffles and there's nothing left but the calm, unbroken surface of the horizon dipping into the water.