Chapter Four: Side effects

Saturday went by with no problem. Yugi had called Anzu on the phone and didn't mention Yami to her. However, just when Sugoroku was feeling a bit hopeful, Yugi had a conversation with his alter ego.

On Sunday, Yugi woke up to the sound of his grandfather's voice for the first time in months.

"Get up sleepy head, it's eleven-thirty!" The old man smiled as he woke his grandson up.

Yugi cocked his head slightly, wondering why his darker half didn't wake him up. Knowing that his grandfather wouldn't be happy, he hurriedly kicked him out, saying that he needed to get changed.

"Yami," he whispered in a sharp tone. "Where are you? What are you up to today?" He shut his eyes tightly and waited for a reply. Ten minutes went by without any movement.

"Hurry up Yugi, did you fall asleep again?"

The loud calling of his grandfather snapped him out of the trance-like state he was in. "I'll be down in a min, can you get me my cereal and a-" Yugi was caught off guard and stopped mid sentence. He thought he had heard something. "Uh, a glass of juice?"

He looked around his room quickly and locked the door. "Yami, where WERE you?" A pause. "What do you mean groggy? You mean sleepy... It's eleven forty... Yes, yes, ELEVEN forty... Oh yeah I don't have to, right." He sat silently in his room, on his knees in a corner.

A minute or two later, Sugoroku was getting impatient. "Yugi, get down here, or I'll eat it for you."

Yugi ran to the door and out of the blue said, "We'll talk later."

"Good morning, grandpa," the short boy said cheerfully, "Wow, I can't believe how long I slept for!"

"You must have been tired, or maybe you went to bed late."

"Hmm... that's funny. I remember eating dinner, but I can't remember going to sleep at all last night. I must have been very tired!"

Sugoroku placed a bowl of Cheerios and a glass of apple juice in front of the hungry child. "Now, you'd ought to be hungry! Eat up."

"Thanks." To Yugi's surprise he was, in fact, very, very hungry. He devoured his first bowl of cereal in less time that it took him to pour the second. He wasn't all that thirsty, though so he didn't drink too much.

Yugi was finishing his third bowl of cereal when his grandfather noticed that there was something building up at the bottom of the boy's glass. He tried to get it away from him, but it was too late. Yugi had seen it.

He held up the glass and examined the bottom. "What is this?" he asked in an unexpectedly angry voice.

"I don't know."

"Looks like someone put something in my glass," Yugi said suspiciously.

"That could be anything," his grandpa replied all but stuttering.

"What are you pulling, old man?"

"I'm not pulling anything, Yugi. That looks like sugar to me."

"Did you put sugar in my glass?" Yugi asked, calming down a little.

Sugoroku was about to reply when Yugi slammed the glass on the table. "Sugar? Sugar?! You expect me to believe that you'd put sugar in my apple juice? Why the HELL'D you do that?"

"Yami?" the old man whispered.

"No, that wasn't YAMI, you senile old man, it was me!"

An idea struck that senile old man just then. "Remember how you thought the orange juice was bad yesterday?"

"Yeah," Yugi replied impatiently.

"Well, I told you it wasn't, but the apple juice was. I put some sugar in it so that it'd taste normal."

Yugi's eyes widened. "Oh, okay," he said in his normal, cheerful voice. "Could you get me a spoon, grandpa?"

Sugoroku stood there staring for a minute. He didn't know what to do. He shrugged and said, "Okay."

"Thank you, grandpa!" Yugi shot him a smile.

Sugoroku walked to the drawer and dug in it for a spoon, surprised that Yugi A) bought it and B) just dropped it like it was nothing. He walked back thinking to himself, well, I knew that they're'd be risks involved. He shook his head, but as he walked passed his room, he saw an orange bottle sitting on the table next to his bed.

"What's wrong grandpa?" he asked, watching his grandfather stir his drink.

"Oh nothing. Just thinking about what a nice, relaxing day today's going to be. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the sugar earlier."

"Sugar? What are you talking about? Why were you stirring my drink?"

"Oh, uh. No reason. Drink up!"

"Thanks grandpa!"

On Sugoroku's nightstand stood the prescription bottle with a label that read "Yugi Motou – take one a day with food for two days. Then take once weekly with food." There was another larger label on the back. "Side effects: increased appetite, short-term memory loss, and increased irritability, which can result in unexplained rage. Use with caution."

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Jinu