Disclaimer: The rights to Yu-Gi-Oh WILL be under my Christmas tree! It's... possible... I should give it up...
o0O0o
Dinner at the Mutou residence that night was a very quiet meal. Atemu sipped at tiny spoonfuls of chicken noodle soup and Yugi and Sogoroku were having actual chicken. Atemu was starting to feel very sick.
"J-Jii-chan?"
"Yes?"
"Um... do you mind if I don't finish this... it's making me feel sick... I feel like I'm going to throw up..."
"Then by all means, stop eating!" Yugi snapped. "Anzu would probably just come and KISS the barf off your lips anyways, so you have nothing to worry about! Maybe you should make yourself sick, so she does!"
"Stop it, Yugi." Atemu growled through gritted teeth, his tan knuckles nearly white as his grip tightened on his soup spoon.
"Why? You've been mean enough to me!"
"I said, stop it!"
"What, is wittle baby 'Temu scared that now his wittle girly friend won't be there to save him?"
"You happen to LIKE that 'wittle girly friend,' IF I AM NOT MISTAKEN!"
"SO IF YOU KNEW I LIKED HER, THEN WHY DID YOU JUST GO AHEAD AND KISS HER?"
"HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS TO YOU, YUGI? THE SITUATION WAS OUT OF MY RA-DARNED CONTROL! IT'S NOT LIKE I JUST SAID, 'OH, YUGI LIKES THIS GIRL, I'LL KISS HER TO MAKE HIM FEEL BAD!' WHAT DO YOU THINK, YUGI?"
"I THINK YOU'RE A CHEATER AND A LIAR, AND YOU COULD'VE JUST KEPT AWAY FROM HER IF YOU REALLY DIDN'T WANT TO HURT ME, LIKE YOU SAY!"
"I COULDN'T CONTROL IT, YUGI! WHAT WILL IT RA-DARNED TAKE TO GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEAD?"
"YOU SHOULD'VE BEEN ABLE TO CONTROL IT THEN!"
"WELL I COULDN'T! I'M HUMAN, YUGI! AND YOU WERE WONDERING WHY I'VE BEEN SO UNHAPPY LATELY, WELL THERE'S YOUR REASON! I WAS JUST TRYING TO GET THROUGH EVERY DAY WITHOUT BLOWING YOU UP BECAUSE I WAS SO ANGRY AT YOU! IT WAS ALL I COULD DO TO KEEP MY SHADOW MAGIC OFF OF YOU! SOME NIGHTS I COULDN'T EVEN SLEEP, AND THEN IT WAS EVEN HARDER TO CONTROL IN THE MORNING! SO IF YOU WANT TO SAY I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU, IF YOU WANT TO SAY I DON'T LOVE YOU MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD, GO AHEAD!"
He jumped up from his place at the table and ran to the bathroom, coming from which the sounds of someone being violently sick could be heard. Yugi cringed and made a disgusted face.
"Yugi Mutou, do you have any idea what you've done to him?"
"What I'VE done to HIM, Jii-chan?"
"Yugi, he loves her. And think about this: She was part of that kiss. He knows that her feelings for him are the same as his are for her. He couldn't help it, Yugi. He could have asked her to date him right there, and she probably would've said yes. He didn't though. Can you figure out why?"
"B-Because... he didn't... he didn't want to hurt me?" Yugi asked, tears welling in his eyes.
"That's right. He didn't want to hurt you, so he instead took on more pain than either of us can imagine."
Yugi gasped. "Oh my gosh... I didn't think about it like that..."
"I think you owe someone an apology, Yugi."
"I- I didn't realize... oh my gosh..."
Suddenly a huge crash could be heard from the direction of the bathroom.
"What was that?" Sogoroku shouted, his voice tight with panic. "What made that noise?"
They heard a cry come from the bathroom where Atemu was currently emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet. Yugi darted for the door and whipped it open. He gasped.
"J-Jii-chan?"
"What happened?" the old man asked, coming up behind Yugi. He nearly had a heart attack.
Atemu lay sprawled out on the bathroom floor, blood trickling from a gash in his stomach. But the blood wasn't red. It was black. Yugi watched as his yami's body slowly became engulfed in the gooey, suffocating blackness.
"What do we do?"
"We get him to a hospital, that's what we do! Call an ambulance, Yugi!"
Yugi dashed to the phone, heart pounding. Oh my Kami, what have I done to him?
o0O0o
Where am I...
Everything's... so... white...
It's like... a hospital... or something like... that...
My stomach... It hurts...
o0O0o
Atemu rolled over in his hospital bed and groaned.
"He's alive!"
"We can see that, dumbo."
"Lay off."
"Now Jou, Honda, calm down," Sogoroku said softly. He walked over to Atemu's bed and touched the boy's shoulder carefully.
"Atemu?"
"J-Jii-chan..."
"How are you?"
"I... I feel... ah... my stomach hurts..." He moaned quietly and tossed about in a spasm-like fit, unable to control his shivering.
"Oh my Ra." Sogoroku's eyebrows knitted together in worry as everyone in the small hospital room watched him. 'Everyone' was Yugi, Anzu, Jou, Honda, Otogi, Shizuka, Ryo, Mai, and Sogoroku himself.
Atemu cried out as pain shot through his head. He tried to move it, but he was in a rat race against his body; it only made his head hurt more. He whimpered weakly as Sogoroku pressed a hand to his forehead.
"What's da diagnosis, doc?" Jou asked Sogoroku, coming forward and putting a hand over one of Atemu's.
"He's burning up. Badly. Could one of you get a nurse or a doctor of some kind? They told us to notify them once he woke."
Jou, Honda and Otogi left the room as one, bumped heads on their way out the door, muttered 'sorry,' as one, and kept going, leaving Sogoroku, Yugi, Anzu, Ryo, Shizuka and Mai left in the room. Suddenly Anzu burst into sobs, hiding her face in her hands. Shizuka hugged her tightly.
"Anzu... it's going to be all right... Don't worry... If he could kill every evil shadow monster in the world, he can get through this."
Anzu just kept sobbing as Sogoroku supported Atemu's head over a large plastic bowl; the boy had begun to throw up violently and relentlessly.
"Oh Atemu, please be all right," the brunette whispered, "Please be all right." Shizuka hugged her tighter.
Jou, Honda and Otogi came back with a nurse a minute later, and Atemu was still retching. His cheeks were their usual tan, mixed with a bright flush, mixed with death grey. The doctor gasped upon seeing this and rushed over to the once-pharaoh's bedside.
"How long has he been doing this?" he asked worriedly, whipping out a clipboard full of papers.
"At least two minutes," Sogoroku replied worriedly. Atemu continued to retch, though there was nothing more shooting into the bowl. He grabbed his stomach and cried out sharply as his body went into a spasm, his breaths coming in the form of wheezing in between each horrible wave of shuddering. The doctor gaped, frozen in fear, as Atemu once again started to throw up what was thought to be the now-nonexistent contents of his stomach.
"Oh my Kami. I have no idea-"
"Well you'd bettuh get an idea!" Jou hissed, grabbing the doctor by the lapels of his coat and lifting him up "Dat's my friend pukin' like that, and it's your job to make him bettuh!"
"Katsuya Jounouchi!"
"Oh... sorry Mr. Mutou... heh... um... sorry Mr. Doctor... uh... I'm just... sorry." He set the man down. "But, do ya know how to fix it?"
"I'm not sure." He turned to Sogoroku. "So you said he had the flu before he passed out, with a gash in his stomach. Anything else?"
"Well... there was the factor of a bit of heavy emotional stress... a lot really..." He motioned towards the hall and the doctor followed. They came back in a minute later, a grim expression on the doctor's face.
"So? Wadda ya gonna do to him? How are ya gonna fix him?" Jou pressed.
"I'm going to take his temperature and try to get it down, and get him hooked up to an IV. We'll see how he does with that, and then I'll let you know if we need to do anything more."
"You kids should leave," Sogoroku commented, and the group obeyed. It was nearly ten at night. The man prodded Yugi in the back as Anzu turned to leave; the two had discussed the matter and Yugi had a plan. It hurt him, but he knew he had to do it.
"Wait! Anzu!" The brunette turned as Yugi ran up to her.
"Anzu, can I... Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Sure." The two walked down into a lesser-used passage of the wing of the hospital they were in.
"Anzu, you know the other day, when I walked into the living and I got all mad at you two, because you were... well, you know..."
"Yes?" She looked sad. The light indigo orbs that were her eyes gleamed brightly in the hall light. Kami, she's so beautiful...
"Well um, listen, I- Well, I mean... I'm sorry. The thing is, I was going to... well, I was going to..."
"Ask me out?" she supplied.
He nodded. "Yeah... but... you like Atemu, right?"
"Oh Yugi, I'm really sorry, but... I couldn't think of you as anything other than a best friend. I'm really sorry." Her eyes brimmed over. "I didn't mean to kiss him, but I-"
"It's okay, Anzu. I understand. Just... do one thing for me."
"Sure... what?"
"Say 'yes' when he asks you out."
She cracked a smile. "I will."
But suddenly the two became silent as a doctor and a nurse strode past where they were walking. Suddenly, the conversation the two medics were having seemed very interesting.
"Yes, that's THE Atemu Mutou. THE ONE AND ONLY Atemu Mutou, yes."
"Doctor, do you have any clue at all as to what he has? He'd started to throw up again just as I left."
"Apparently it started out as a cold, then a flu, and some emotional weight hasn't helped either."
"What kind, doctor?"
"Apparently his brother... twin... I swear I heard something like 'hikari' or something... but anyway, apparently they liked the same girl, but the girl liked Atemu, so the other kid gave him a right proper pain in the butt about it...."
Anzu saw Yugi whimper next to her. She took him firmly by the hand and led him away.
"Yugi."
He looked up to her face, eyes filled to bursting with tears. "What?"
"It's all right. Atemu knows you didn't mean it."
"I know..."
Anzu stooped down and hugged him tightly. "Come on. Let's get you back to Atemu and your Jii-chan."
He didn't object as she practically dragged him back into Atemu's room. Sogoroku, seated on the edge of the boy's bed, put a finger to his lips as the two teens entered, motioning towards the boy on the bed. Atemu was finally asleep, though his breathing was none too steady.
"Did everything go all right?" he asked Yugi. When his grandson nodded, he took the boy by the hand. "Come on, you two. Anzu, I told your parents Yugi and I would walk you home; it's dangerous to be outside alone."
She nodded and stood beside Atemu's bed for a minute. Taking hold of his icy hand, she played with his fingers until they warmed up under her touch. "Goodnight 'Temu," she whispered, and followed Yugi and Sogoroku out the door into the hall, and then out into the cold outside. It only saddened her more to know that the elements seemed to work in parallel to Atemu's condition as it started to snow, great grey flakes making their walk to Anzu's house, and then for Yugi and Sogoroku back to the game shop, more freezing.
When the short boy and his grandfather finally made it home, the snowstorm had turned into a full-force blizzard. The two hurried inside, Yugi slamming the door shut behind them, shivering. He sifted through various pieces of mail which he had picked up from the mailbox as they passed the front door. One small card in particular caught his eye.
"Jii-chan, can I go to this?" he asked, handing the card to his grandfather. Sogoroku read it aloud.
"All in Domino are cordially invited to a Christmas Eve dinner and dance, starting five o' clock Christmas Eve and lasting until midnight at Kaiba Corporation Festivity Hall. Fancy dress. All ages welcome." He turned to Yugi. "Sure."
"Thanks... yikes, that's only in a few days!"
The old man smiled. "You'll have to still wear that suit though; I don't think they make tuxes in your size."
o0O0o
Okay... I just felt in the mood to write, so I threw together a random piece of... something... Could y'all tell?
Review Replies:
Nah, SpiritPuppyLuvrs, I think they got back together pretty well, considering. I want to get this one done by Christmas, it's a quickie. It'll be finished in one or two, POSSIBLY three more chapters but it shouldn't be more than that. Yes, mucho MUCHO angsty! But who doesn't like Atemu when he's angsty? Me, I think it makes him all the more glompable... hehe...
Thanks a bunch, and Happy Holidays to you too, CommonKnowledge.
Of course it ends good, C.A.M.E.O.! It's a romance written by me! It MUST end good! What do you think I'd do, kill them off or something... funny, I'm doing that in another one... hehe... -ducks from blows- Okay! Okay! I get it, I shouldn't kill'em off! Gotcha!
It was very brutal, wasn't it, Ninqe? I am evil and sadistic, ne? Hehe... it's all in the wrist... -sees you seeing me brandishing flamethrower, hides flamethrower behind back and whistles- Oh, hello! How are you today? Didn't see you there, hehe... Oh yeah, those episodes where he goes all E-V-I-L! Actually, it didn't come from that, I just knew he had shadow magic and it's a pretty clear thing in the series how dangerous his emotions could be(Look at what happened when he played the seal of Oriekalcos!), so I just... took it to my sadistic, twisted, slightly insane level! I'm glad you liked the kiss scene! Thanks!
Nah, I meant 'Temu, norestar-angel. But f you're so quick to jump to the defense... hmm...
Glad you liked it, AREZAL!
Whoa, I got a ton of reviews again! -huggles wonderful reviewers- Thankies so much! See y'all next chappie! -BlackCharmgirl