So here's the question: "How does the title relate?"

Allow me to explain. It comes from the opening of the book The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping by Nasdijj. I believe I have mentioned it before. It's what really inspired me to write this. The idea had come to me some time before, but it wasn't until I read this man's story of his son's struggle with pediatric AIDS that I realized things like this can be written. All of the details. If led faithfully through the story, the reader can accept anything. If he trusts the author, he will accept anything. So I thank each and every one of my readers and my reviewers from the bottom of my heart for trusting me. Thank you for making the experience of writing this fiction a joy and a triumph. I could not have done it without your support and encouragement. God bless you.

"I am afraid of losing my mind. I want something no one is allowed to have.

I want the mad ones. The children mad enough to struggle and survive. I want the children who have seen war. The children mad enough to question everything. The children who have had everything taken away from them. The children who are broken and mad enough to attempt to repair themselves. The children mad enough to spit and fight. Mad enough to laugh outrageously. Mad enough to make music of their own. Mad enough to see themselves as individuals. I want children who will dance in the rain. I want the mad, crazy ones. I want the ones insane enough to love hard, and brave enough to be vulnerable."

Nasdijj

Updated February 2005:

I finally realized last night in my creative writing class that I have been remiss all this time. I most humbly apologize to my readers, who so faithfully invested in Yugi's struggle and then were cheated out of the moment of remembrance by this ugly deus ex machina I forced upon them. I had intended the revelation to come to you in the manner it is revealed to Yami, as he is essentially the main character, but that was hardly fair, and it has been a common thread of criticism. I resolved to myself upon this epiphany that I would attend to this error, if not for the enjoyment of the initial readers, then for the simple comfort of my own peace of mind. This is so important. I want you to be there with Yugi when he remembers. I want to give you this gift.

(coeptus)

"So he's making progress?"

"Yes," Yami replied, "in the little things. Slowly, it seems—very slowly—I'm beginning to recognize the person he used to be."

The other man nodded profoundly where he sat across the desk. "How are you dealing with that?" he asked. "Are you prepared for the event that everything returns to the way it was?"

"I am…not sure," he admitted sadly. "I've gotten so used to being his father, to having someone depend on me. It will be difficult to go back now. I guess…no. I am not ready. But it will be for the best…whenever it happens." He sighed heavily, like some immense weight was settling into his chest. Like a man exhausted. "Sometimes I feel like we're going in circles. One minute I'll be convinced that we're on the verge of some breakthrough…then he'll revert. I know it's a slow process. I just want him to be okay." Kei was staring at him. Yami continued, "He had kind of an episode last week. His friends were talking about a mutual acquaintance at school, and I was standing nearby, and I could see that Yugi was afraid—sincerely terrified—and as soon as the man's name was mentioned, he started gagging, violently. I tried to talk to him—he wouldn't answer me. It seemed like he was…in shock."

"And you want to know what it could mean," the psychologist suggested.

"I know what I think it means," Yami said carefully.

"And I am obliged to agree with you. Yugi might very well know the identity of his assailant, and even if he's repressed it, when confronted, it only makes sense that he reacted the way he did," Kei explained. "So what are you going to do with this knowledge?"

"I don't know. Wait, I guess. I really don't know what I can do. Any DNA trace we had at the beginning is gone now. We had no one to match it against. And without Yugi's testimony of what happened, it's my hunch against that bastard's word. I can't do anything," Yami speculated.

"You've thought about this."

"Of course I have."

Kei nodded again, shifted in his seat and removed his glasses to wipe them methodically on the hem of his shirt. "So what did you do after the…episode?"

"I took him to his room. I made the grave error of leaving him alone. That was the day I told you about over the phone, when I found him in the bathroom with the scissors."

"You think he was purposefully trying to hurt himself?"

Yami's eyes lost focus for a second, and then fixed in on the other man once more. "In light of what had just happened, I would have to say yes," he answered. "Yugi gave me a perfectly innocent explanation, but it still concerns me. He's never struck me as suicidal, though."

"It wasn't necessarily an attempt at suicide," Kei reminded him, slipping his glasses back into place, "just self-mutilation. Whether he honestly only wanted to cut his hair, or if he had the intention of cutting himself, you may never decipher. Consider only it a very deliberate act of mutilation."

"Why would he do that?"

Kei folded his hands calmly in front of him. "Several possibilities," he illuminated. "He may have been trying to…distract himself. You said you suspected him of remembering things?"

"He's seemed so distant lately."

"When did you first get this feeling?"

He thought for a moment. "He came home from a slumber party that didn't work out," Yami recalled after a moment. "He told me about a dream that he's been having frequently."

Kei looked surprised. "He's dreaming about the incident?"

"I assume. From the description he gave me, I could not imagine a different interpretation."

"Isn't it possible, though, that this is not a recurring dream, but a memory," he inquired, leaning back into the leather upholstered chair, "and telling you it was merely a 'dream' might make it less frightening to him? If he indeed has remembered something of that evening, it is understandable that he would be shaken to the core, but the ten year-old mentality would prevent him from accepting the memory as fact and instead give him way to dismiss it as a 'bad dream'."

"What should I do about it?"

"Nothing," Kei shrugged. "There's nothing you can do. This is his memory, and he's got to handle it in his own way."

"So…ignore it? Like I have all along?" Yami was growing irritated, his voice rising in aggravation. "Ignore this just like everything else and hope it goes away—well that hasn't been working—things have gotten worse, if anything, and I am tired of it."

The psychologist was still composed. "Be sensible about this," he said. "It's going to take time. And we're not guaranteed that things will ever be exactly as they once were. Perhaps he's a completely new person now, and you'll have to learn to accept—" He stopped himself mid-sentence, an idea so astute dawning on him like genius. "That's it," he breathed. "Why, it's been there all along."

"What has?" Yami asked, his interest having peaked beyond the extent of his frustration.

"I think the purpose behind all of this pretense," Kei lined out slowly, relishing in his own deductive intellect as if he were Sherlock Holmes, "was for the boy to become a completely different person from who he was. Yes, it's all there," he marveled, his tempo picking up as the details came more fluently to him, "the establishment of a younger age, the matching characteristics and relationships, and now the hair—the image. He's been making himself into someone else, someone who wasn't raped, who never had to deal with such feelings of doubt, guilt, and fear."

"He has been lying."

"—Please don't consider it lying," Kei objected quickly. "He was wounded, and feeling insecure, and wanted to manifest his identity as someone completely different from the boy who had been targeted by a rapist. It makes perfect sense. He's been protecting himself."

"No," Yami disagreed tensely, the edge of hostility creeping back into his voice. "He's been lying…and I have allowed it. He's got to stop running away from the things that scare him. Otherwise, he'll be stuck in this…protective bubble, where he thinks no one can hurt him. But that's wrong. How can he live that way? He ought to be stronger than that. I don't know why he's become so resigned to his fate. I suppose it's partly my fault as well. Maybe there could have been something I did differently all along—my reaction to him, my discipline of him, my expectations from him—"

"Now, don't be rash" Kei entreated him, feeling that his credibility had begun to slip through his fingers like sand. "You've got to be patient and compassionate with him."

Yami stood up. "Patience and compassion have nothing to do with this," he argued in almost a yell. "I cannot allow him to deceive himself any longer. It can't go on. I've been pandering to his every whim, spoiling him in everything he's wanted just because it made him happy. And I've had you," he emphasized, narrowing his eyes dangerously at the other man, "breathing down my neck and telling me to go along with the lie that has kept Yugi paralyzed, prisoner to his own game since this whole thing started. I have played along with this elaborate delusion on the unacceptable excuse of comfort! No, he deserve so much better than that. I will not coddle the child he'd like to think he's become!"

"Be reasonable," Kei pleaded. It was a last defense.

"Reason?" Yami was furious now, shouting across the desk and glaring down on the alarmed psychologist. "This is the first time I've listened to reason since I became his father! Honestly, how well can you diagnose patients you've never met and know nothing about? You don't know the boy he once was. He would never lay down and die—give up—like he has. I will not let him." Yami jabbed an accusing finger in the other man's direction. "You may think I started out if nothing else perhaps a little biased," he continued, "but I assure you, it could not be further from the truth. As soon as he allowed me into his life, he has been the very air I breathe; he has been my thoughts and concerns every waking hour and sleepless night—but the moment that godless, worthless, senseless, heartless sonofawhore took him away from me, I thought there would be no reason to live." His voice broke. He hesitated. "Until I found a hope that he could be the person he once was. And I want him back. But he can't come back to me if I only let him lie to himself." He laughed shortly and bitterly. "No, for the first time in a very long time, I'm thinking clearly. And I have had just about enough of you."

(intercapedo)

"Daddy, where are we going?"

Yami stormed on, pulling his boy along by the hand. He'd made up his mind. In a moment of fury and frustration, he'd fired the psychologist, and in his blind rage he'd decided to stop standing by ignoring the circumstances and do something. Brazen though it may have been, Yami had to believe there was something he could actively do to help his son, rather than continue to play along like some marionette in a spectacular farce. So here he was, dragging Yugi behind him as he strode determinedly down the sidewalk.

"Daddy, where are you taking me?" Yugi asked, distantly aware that this particular stretch of walkway was uncannily familiar to him. There was an apartment building across the street to his right, and up ahead he could see the faded red brick wall of what used to be some kind of grocery store. His father walked on in front of him, weaving to the left and around the corner onto a narrow cement lane between a high fence and the towering red brick wall of what used to be a grocery store.

"Here," Yami said, and stopped, and turned around. "Here—look around you. Just tell me honestly what you remember."

Yugi stared at him. "I don't know, Daddy."

Yami was beginning to get angry. "You must," he insisted, his voice rising, and he took the boy firmly by the shoulders. "This has to mean something to you. You know where we are, don't you? You have to know this place—just tell me!"

Yugi's voice wavered. "Daddy, you're scaring me."

Yami made an almost hissing noise in the back of his throat, and stepped away from his son. "This," he demonstrated, gesturing wildly around him. "Tell me what this means to you. Tell me—honestly—whatever you know. Stop hiding it from me!"

The boy's lip quivered. He shook his head and wept pitifully, "I don't know."

Abruptly, Yami realized how frightened he was making the child, and he seemed to control his frustration, and he said, gently now, "It's okay, honey. I am not angry with you. You can be honest with me. Just tell me whatever you remember about this place. I will not think badly of you—I want to help."

Yugi sniffled again, and glanced about disinterestedly until his eyes fell to some indeterminable place on the ground, and he became very still, and very quiet, and Yami could feel the tension in his body, like some silent wrath that had been bottled up, that was threatening to bubble over and consume the boy. Yugi's hands had become fists at his side. He said, very softly, "I don't like this place."

Yami stared at him, unable for a moment to decide what it meant. "What do you remember?" he asked, but Yugi didn't respond for a long time, and Yami became worried for him, and stepped near him and laid a hand on his shoulder. His son shied away, sank trembling to his knees and covered his ears with his hands. Like he was trying to drown out some noise Yami couldn't hear. It occurred to him that this might have been a bad idea. "Honey? Honey, it's okay," he said, kneeling down to try and comfort the boy. "You can talk to me—"

Suddenly Yugi was screaming.

Just screaming.

He'd gone somewhere in his mind, drawn back to some painful niche in the timeline of his life, and Yami could do nothing. He stood by mutely, incapable of response, silent spectator to this emotional outburst in a daze that can only be described as shock. Impossibly long seconds later and all at once, the screaming stopped. Yugi's body was motionless, and doubled over on the dirty ground. Yami also sank to his knees, aware now that he'd made a mistake in bringing him here. "Yugi," he said softly, wanting to touch him, to comfort him, but he hesitated in a strange and baseless fear. "Yugi, I'm sorry. Honey? I'm sorry—I shouldn't have made you come here. Yugi? Honey, talk to me." Yami fretted over him tenderly for several moments, begging in his broken way for any sign that the boy was listening, that he could hear, that he understood, that he was all right.

Finally Yugi lifted his tear-stained face and, sniffling, rubbed a hand at his eyes. "I don't like this place," he repeated in a strained voice. "Can we go home now?"

Yami was shocked.

So you're not going to let me in?

Something had gone off in the boy's mind—that much was irrefutable—but he still wouldn't talk about it. Yami was too overcome with guilt at his lapse of judgment, however, to dwell on it. "Of course," he said numbly, and helped his son to his feet. They walked home slowly, in much less of a hurry on the return trip. They walked in silence, and the thing that puzzled Yami the most was the fact that Yugi clung to his arm fiercely. He'd had to drag him there, and he figured his son would be too upset to want to be near him now, but instead the boy faithfully sought out his hand to hold as they made their way back to the Turtle Game Shop. Yami didn't know what had returned to his son, or what exactly had frightened him and made him act the way he had, but it was obvious that he was not willing to talk just yet, so they walked home in silence.

Solomon was up in arms when they arrived. "What's going on?" he asked with indignation after Yami dutifully escorted the boy to his room and told him to rest, and that he'd be back in a while. "What happened?" Solomon demanded. "The last thing I knew you were storming out of here and dragging my grandson along, without a word of where you were going or why."

"I know. I'm sorry, Solomon. I fear I made a mistake. I was angry about the advice Kei always gives me, so I fired him," he explained wearily, continuing in spite of the old man's surprise at this news. "His philosophy tends to be ignorance, and I told him I would not allow it anymore. I guess I got carried away. I thought I could do something to help Yugi. I don't know." He paused, chiding himself for the insensitivity of it. "I took him back there, Solomon," he admitted at last. "To the place I found him. I don't know what I was trying to prove—why I thought it would bring anything back. Instead it terrified him."

The elderly Mutou shook his head, and his tone was one of disapproval when he said, "That was rather unfeeling of you."

"I realize that," Yami agreed. "I just didn't know what to do. I felt as though everything was up to me—like there was something I had to do right then to make it all better."

Solomon understood now, and his stern countenance softened into compassion. "Well," he exacted gently, "you can't. I appreciate your intentions, but some things just have to take their courses. We don't always know why. Maybe we're not meant to know why. We accept things on simple faith, and go about our lives." The old man sighed. "Don't be troubled, my boy. It'll work itself out."

(intercapedo)

Yugi was on the bed, lying on his stomach, idly playing with a small plastic dinosaur when his father entered the room and sat beside him on the mattress. The idle playing ceased. He crossed his arms on the pillow in front of him, and rested his chin on them. Yami's hand was on his back, rubbing his skin through the cotton tee-shirt. "Are you all right?" he asked, at which Yugi gave a small nod. After a pause, he said, "I'm sorry." The boy turned his face away. "Can you forgive me?" Yami tried.

Yugi stirred momentarily. "Yes," he mumbled at last.

Yami sighed, relieved. He rubbed his son's back affectionately, ran his fingers through thick hair. They were silent together. The boy moved his head so that his chin was resting on his arms again, staring forward. Not at his father. Yami removed his hand. Finally, Yugi whispered, "You're not my real Daddy, are you?"

There was not the great sadness that Yami had anticipated. To his surprise, the words fell without effect on his ears, as if they had been expected for some time. So there it was. From now on he wouldn't be Daddy anymore. But Yugi would still be ten, and he would continue to accept his world in half-truths. It was that fact which pained Yami more than the termination of his brief experience of fatherhood. "No," he admitted softly, "I'm not. Does that make you sad?"

"Yes." Yugi turned his head and looked at him. "If you're not my Daddy," he asked, "then who are you?"

Yami glanced away, feeling like a criminal and a liar in that honest and innocent gaze. He swallowed. "I'm a friend," he explained, the pain now beginning to set in, "who loves you very much, and who wants to take care of you, and make sure you're okay." They locked eyes.

Yugi had started to cry, silent tears snaking down his cheeks. He buried his face in his arms. "Can…can I still call you Daddy," he asked, his voice muffled.

No, was Yami's rational response. If you know I'm not your father, let's stop pretending. But he knew that, ultimately, he was a selfish creature. Being called Daddy was a comfort to him, as he was sure it was to Yugi. It was safe. And familiar. Yes, let's stay here just a little longer. "You can," Yami agreed, "if I can still call you Honey."

All right, honey.

Let us stay here, you and me.

I do not care what you remember. You are my precious perfect Yugi. You are all that matters. I will not keep you from your play if it makes you happy. We can stay here in Neverland for as long as it takes. If time is what you need, sweetheart, then we have all the time in the world.

Just be you.

And I will love you for that.

(intercapedo)

It had rained so much lately. Yami paid no mind. There was routine—there was housework—and plenty of chores to do. He and Yugi seemed to have reached a mutual, symbiotic kind of peace. Yugi was still distant, and quiet, but he seemed happy. His gentle and kind nature Yami could not seem to refuse, so the boy got anything he wanted. As long as he did not become conceited, Yami decided to continue treating him in this way. Perhaps it was the entirely wrong method, but he had come to the realization that loving indulgence was far better than pining for things to return to normal, so instead he altered his perception of 'normal,' and things seemed to be working out fine. And then late one drizzly afternoon while Yami was studying the contents of the refrigerator in order to decide what he might make for supper, Solomon found him and asked, concern vaguely resonant in his tone, "Do you know where Yugi is? I can't find him anywhere."

"He asked to play in the rain for a while," Yami replied casually as he closed the fridge and opened a cabinet to rifle through cans of cream of mushroom soup and condensed milk. "He's in the backyard."

"I just looked there a moment ago and didn't see him," Solomon objected.

Yami froze.

"What?"

He was out the back door in a heartbeat, rain pouring down on him as he stood dumbly with his mouth agape. The gate was swinging open. It didn't register until after a full thirty seconds. The gate was wide open. And Yugi was gone. "Oh God," Solomon breathed, also at the back door.

Instinct took Yami, and he darted, wasting no time to explain. There was a strange and sedative calm within his mind as he thought. Yugi had stepped out of the house approximately twenty minutes ago. Even if he started out then, he could not be more than a mile away. If he was walking, Yami could search in concentric circles around the house, and as long as he ran, their paths would eventually cross. Eventually. Unless Yugi was not walking. Unless he knew exactly where he was going, and in such case Yami wondered where that would be, and why he had run away.

The questions and the doubt gnawed away at his theory and his endurance, and eventually panic began to stir the odd quiet of his mind. At a brisk jog, he searched the neighborhood streets. The longer he wandered, the harder it rained. The sky was growing dark with oppressive clouds. This was not one of the friendly showers that had frequented Domino City in the last few weeks—this was turning into a thunderstorm. Yami's clothes were heavy with water, and they weighed him down like the apprehension growing in his heart. The sound of the raindrops hitting the pavement had become a steady, relentless hissing in his ear, and the hopeless, disparaging thought occurred to him that Yugi could be anywhere by now.

(in media res)

Yugi stared ahead at the empty building with vacant eyes.

It had all started here. He knew it. Some things you just know.

The rain fell in a torrent—in angry little drops—around and through him. Lightning flashed in the sky, and a responding clap of thunder rumbled distantly. Yugi felt somehow removed from it all. He was staring straight ahead at the brick of the almost familiar building, the damp walls of it rising out against the grayness of the sky like an apparition, the secret knowledge of Yugi's past hovering loftily in the air just beyond the boy's perception.

Yugi was not stupid. He realized he was very different from his friends. Something had happened to him—something cruel and unnatural had been done to him. The one who pretended to be his father knew what this thing was, and obviously wanted Yugi to remember, but he couldn't. Not the details anyway. He knew with clarity that it had been raining—not quite so much as today—and that the stranger had spoken to him. He could still hear that serpent voice, laboring eagerly to him from the shadows, "C'mere, boy. You're awfully pretty, boy—has anyone ever told you that? You are. Jus' come here and I'll tell you more about it. Let me see you hair, boy. It's so funny. So funny. Come closer, lemme give you a haircut, pretty little boy—"

Yugi shivered. The rest of the memory was vague—a blur of the man's face, crystalline eyes, the rough texture of the wall as his face was pressed into it, and pain. It was the last memory he had of before. Yugi stared at the building in front of him, his eyes sweeping over the sign: Domino High School. He realized, with little surprise, that he knew what the words said without having to read them. He'd been here before, many times before the point at which he no longer could remember. This place was important. He blinked rain out of his eyes, and stared. The building stared back. The brick walls of the school loomed up like the flanks of some great monster—the memory of his past—that stooped down, urging him, "See." A breeze swept the rain forward into Yugi's face, and ruffled his wet hair affectionately.

See.

And as he stared, it appeared to Yugi that there was a second scene fabricating over the existing one, and before his eyes the image strengthened its superimposition. He saw a clear blue sky above him and many boys and girls with backpacks milling about in the selfsame schoolyard he now stood. Yugi saw, in this strange double-image, a familiar group of students standing under a tree near the entrance where there was no one now but the rain coming down in sheets. He walked toward them, thinking he might speak with them, but as he neared he began to recognize who they were. By the time he had reached the tree, he could see the rain falling directly through all of them and Yugi knew that they could not really be there. In the gathering was a blonde boy mock-wrestling with a dark haired young man, and a brunette girl stood by laughing at them good-naturedly, and she spoke with a fair featured boy with white hair and a winning smile. And there among them the shortest member stood regarding his companions with amusement. He had very funny hair.

Abruptly, the image disappeared and was replaced by the gray yard wet with rain pouring down from threatening clouds. Another bolt of lightning lit the sky, and Yugi flinched at the instantaneous boom of thunder. He had once been here with his friends, had once existed and behaved in their grown-up manner, had once been able to function completely of his own will, and was happy. He had been here, had lived this life, before the man with the crystalline eyes and serpent voice had taken it away. That sense of loss filled Yugi with a great sadness, and he longed only to weep but knew he could not. There was still much to observe.

He refocused his mind.

(in media res)

Finally the residential street let out onto a main road. Yami shivered. He was standing a block down from the grocery store. He could distantly make out the red brick façade through the rain hammering down before his eyes. There was a sickly feeling of déjà vu twisting knots in his stomach. This could not be happening again. Suddenly he found that his feet were being pulled in the direction of the empty building. No. Not there. Not this. He hated this helpless feeling. It was like a nightmare—the further he walked toward it, the farther away the red brick building became. Finally the thing towered before him, and he didn't want to look but he knew he should. He was shaking all over. He walked around the side, heart pounding, turned the corner and—

Nothing.

Of course.

Why would Yugi go back there again? He said so himself—he hated the place.

The relief that washed over him almost caused Yami to laugh out loud, but he couldn't end his search here. Yugi was still out there somewhere, drenched, and freezing, and Yami had to find him. So he tried to slow the frantic beating of his heart and left that place more centered in his mind and less frantic. Yugi was okay. He had to be okay. Nothing bad had happened to him, he just ran away. All kids do that sometimes. For attention.

Yami gathered himself and walked on, still trembling slightly but doing his best to stay focused. Glancing ahead, he saw a familiar figure approaching. He wiped the rain from his face—hoping to catch a clearer glimpse—to find that the figure was running at him. Joey greeted him on the sidewalk, out of breath but appearing to be full of concentrated energy. Thunder rumbled low and threateningly in the distance. "Hey Yami," he hollered over the rain, "I'm glad I found you. Solomon called me. He said he already talked to the police. Where have you looked?" he asked.

"The neighborhood," Yami answered.

"Good. How about this—I'll go search the park," Joey said. "You check out the school. Let's meet back at the shop in a half an hour and go from there. Okay?"

"Yes," he agreed numbly. Countless thankful remarks and perfectly grateful things to say raced across Yami's mind, but he found he was too preoccupied to offer any of them to his friend. When he opened his mouth to say something, he suddenly realized there were tears in his eyes, and he choked up. Seeming to understand, Joey patted him reassuringly on the back and the two went their separate ways.

Yami felt immeasurably better after his encounter with a levelheaded friend. The panic was clearing, allowing him to think more reasonably about the situation. Yes. Yugi had to be just fine. The worst to fear might be a cold induced by the harsh elements. Yami's feet led on through familiar streets and crossings, and he was so distracted that he jumped a little at every shocking bolt of light in the sky, every resounding clap of thunder. Wherever Yugi was, he must have been terrified.

(in media res)

See, the building coaxed.

This time Yugi closed his eyes and envisioned himself under that clear blue sky, alone in the grass out here. And in this vision, he saw himself turn and walk toward the entrance of the school and to the door, which opened at his approach as if it had expected him. Without hesitation, Yugi crossed the threshold, the sunlight outside casting his shadow before him into the dimness of the interior. This will not do, he thought, and the strange notion that it was the voice of the building and not his own that spoke within his mind occurred to him. Now, how did it look on the inside?

Slowly, one corner at a time as he recalled the details of the place, the room lit to reveal a large commons with linoleum floor, lockers lining the back wall, and various hallways branching out to his left and right. When the room had been revealed him, he began to see and hear things all around him. Figures took form as students passed him, chatting animatedly. A band rehearsed somewhere, brassy notes reverberating throughout the hallways. A voice on the intercom system announced that lunch detention would be held in gym C. A teacher loudly reprimanded a student for violating dress code.

Inexplicably, Yugi was jostled in among the crowd, and he did not resist, instead allowing the current to carry him where it willed. He entered a hallway to discover he was passing various academic rooms where students talked leisurely between classes. There appeared an office with glass windows off to his left, and he could see a frazzled-looking receptionist inside, at her desk. The walls then dropped away sharply and Yugi found himself in the cafeteria. Various smells wafted in through the kitchen and students lingered at the tables. A boy at the edge of his peripheral vision laughed harshly, and he turned in time to see a careless student throw a wadded piece of paper at someone bent over an unidentifiable spill with a mop in hand.

Yugi's blood went cold.

The man with the mop gritted his teeth at the projectile that bounced off his neck, and he glared up at Yugi with the utmost contempt. Those ice-blue hungry eyes burned into him. At once the other occupants of the room faded away into darkness again, and there was only the man and Yugi. Fear gripped him as he realized the serpent-voiced tormentor of his dreams and this man with his mop were one and the same. There was suddenly a sharp, piercing pain in his right temple, and the vision dissipated as Yugi, on the outside and in the rain, cried out and clenched his head in his hands.

He felt as if his skull would split with the sudden overload of broken images, sounds, and fragments of memory that flooded his mind: The headstone of a grave somewhere, Grandpa Solomon in the shop that he owned. The breath escaping the tiny lungs of a baby bird that stiffened and died in Yugi's hand. The gambit in a peculiar card game he and Joey played. Calculating the angle of a parabola at his desk in his room. A small golden pyramid that whispered to him. Purple-crimson eyes. The backs of four outstretched hands with thick marker lines of some childish drawing. Bakura laughing darkly. Crying and crying into his pillow about mom. The warmth of hot chocolate running down his throat. Staring at a playing card held between his fingers and reading aloud: Dark Magician. The man he knew as Daddy watching over him guardedly as he studied. A snippet of some song about the Maelstrom of Love.

And—finally—the man's heavy grasp on his arms as he cried in pain and struggled, and then a hand on his cheek, locked on his jaw, that pushed the side of his head suddenly and violently against a rough wall.

And then blackness.

(in media res)

Eventually the lightning relented and the rain eased off. Yami looked up through the drizzle that was left to discover with some surprise that he had inadvertently walked to the high school. Funny. Why had he thought to go there? The last school Yugi had attended was the elementary school. Why had Yami's subconscious navigational mind led him here? He was about to turn and leave, in the direction of the grade school, when he spied a familiar shape huddled under a tree across the campus. Yami sighed.

It will be in the last place you look.

His relief at having found Yugi thwarted his impulsive frustration at the entire ordeal, and he ran. The nearer he came to the figure sitting on the ground under the shelter of the tree, the more certain he was. The hair, even when wet, was unmistakable. Finally Yami was within range, and he was soon on the wet ground beside the boy. "Yugi," he said, instantly throwing his arms around him in a fierce hug. "Honey, I was so worried about you." He pulled away momentarily to look him over. "Are you all right? Yugi, are you hurt?"

"No," he said, allowing the hands to sweep damp bangs out of his face, inspect his arms for cuts, bruises. There was a strange and dull expression in his eyes that went unnoticed.

"I'm so glad," Yami exclaimed instead, and pulled Yugi into another hug. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, okay?"

"Okay," the boy mumbled against him.

"You promise you won't run away again?" Yami asked. "Promise me, Yugi."

Yugi sniffled, and whispered, "I promise, Yami."

—The air left Yami's lungs in one crushing exhale. His eyes slammed shut. He felt a tingling sensation run down his spine. The boy had not called him by that name in a long time. Not since before he lost his memory. The implication of it nearly incapacitated his mind's ability to form the vagrant and frenzied thoughts into one sensible question. "What," he asked, his throat constricting instinctively, "…did you call me?"

"I called you Yami," Yugi answered.

Yami drew back. Afraid this might be some beautiful dream that would flutter away like a startled bird if he acted too quickly, he took a long moment to compose himself and finally opened his eyes to look at Yugi—really look at him. Something had changed. It was obvious now. Some haze had been lifted after so long a time of living in darkness. It took the span of a dozen audible heartbeats drumming in his ears to actually register with Yami, and then he just simply didn't know what to do. What does one do, he asked himself. Where do we go from here, after everything we've been through together? How do we go back to being friends, after I've known you so intimately as my adoring son? How can everything end like this, so suddenly? How will I live my life without your endearing exaltation of me, your father? How will I survive?

The only way I can—one moment at a time. Starting with this one.

Yugi, you've come back to me.

At length, Yami lifted a hand, and traced the lines of Yugi's face—so tenderly—with his fingertips, as if he were memorizing the boy's features all over again. As if he were coming home. That chin, those lips, youthful perfect nose, eyebrow, lashes, cheekbone. "Yugi—I," he stuttered foolishly, new tears mingling with the rain on his face, "…I missed you."

Yugi had begun to cry at this point, as well, and they regarded each other wordlessly—two average enough boys, it would seem—best friends, truest allies, confidants, partners, companions. All they were and had ever been. They embraced there under a tree and in the rain, and together they wept…

(intercapedo)

Yugi sat back from his story and sighed deeply—weary, it seemed, from the telling. "It took a long time for things to be…normal…again," he explained with a sigh. "Even now I'm a year behind in school." He fell silent, staring thoughtfully down at the sticky surface of the lunch table.

The new girl, who had been raptly fixed upon his every word, became suddenly aware of the penetrative quiet. She cleared her throat lightly and asked, as gently as she could, "What was the hardest part about coming back?"

Yugi glanced at each of his friends, who gazed back at him expectantly. He could almost feel their unspoken support surge up around him, and he was comforted. "Facing my friends," he admitted at last. "I felt like I'd put everyone through so much, how could things possibly go back to normal? I felt so…embarrassed. That took a while to get over. It was especially hard at those times when all I wanted to do was run home and bury my face in my pillow." His eyes had grown distant as he continued to recollect. "Sometimes things are still hard for me. Sometimes I'll relapse into this feeling of fear or insecurity." He smiled. "But Yami's there. He's always there."

"He sounds like an amazing person," the new girl remarked, awed by the image of someone so utterly loyal to a set of principals that his world spun on its axis around the interests and well-being of this one boy.

Yugi nodded solemnly. "More so than you can imagine," he agreed.

"Do you think," she asked shyly, painfully aware of the blush creeping into her cheeks, "I could meet him someday?"

"I'm sure," he replied with a smile. "He likes meeting my friends."

"Yeah, but don't be alarmed when he acts all standoffish before you get to know him," Joey chimed in. "That's normal. It means he likes you."

"He's a sweet guy," Tea giggled. "And the way he cares for Yugi will just melt you."

Yugi chuckled. "I've actually slipped up a couple times and called him 'Daddy.' It feels so natural. Granted I apologize and everything, but I think it reassures him. And to be honest, it makes me feel better, too. There's familiarity in it. There's a feeling of safety. It's like knowing he'll be there to catch me should I fall," he explained, his voice growing strained with emotion. "And with that knowledge, everything else seems…"

"—Bearable," Joey finished his friend's thought, laying a hand on the shoulder of Yugi, whose eyes were welling with tears. "It's okay, Yuug. We know."

The boy sniffled, wiping a tear from his cheek with the sleeve of his shirt. "I was lucky," he said. "And I mean—really lucky. I could have been killed. I was in a coma, but I came out of it. People can stay in comas for years. Mine lasted hours. I had amnesia—I don't anymore. I could've gotten anything," he said, shuddering at the thought. "Tetanus, AIDS, any STD. You name it. I get tested periodically, of course, just to be sure," he explained, "but as far as I know, I didn't catch anything. There's something to be said of providence in that. It's something to be infinitely thankful for." His sight landed with great affection around the table. "And my friends," he said. "They've never once abandoned me. Every one is so dear, and I couldn't have gotten to where I am today without their help." Yugi looked up at the new girl again. "You're fortunate to have all of them," he told her. "These are the best friends anyone could hope to have. They'll never let you down."

The girl glanced at each of them, feeling strangely as if she knew them so well already. The introspective and polite Bakura with his music and his dance. Sensible and gentlemanly Tristan, who tended to let his inclination toward the fairer sex cloud his better judgment. Outgoing and sensitive Tea—matriarch and loving supporter of the group. Good old dependable Joey, who could always be counted on to deliver some sound piece of advice disguised as jest. The sweet and gentle Serenity—who was absent from the table. Fiercely protective Yami. And Yugi. Bright-eyed, intelligent, and eager to live.

"It's such an inspiring story," she commented. "I'm a writer, you see? It's what I'm studying to do. With your permission, may I please write all of this down? With different names and such? I think it has great potential to reach people."

Yugi smiled at her. "Sure," he said. "And if you don't mind, I'd like to read it when you're finished."

"Of course," she replied, and the rush and clamor of the cafeteria traffic swelled up around the humble group of friends, their closely tied and lasting history invisible to the passersby. You know them well. You may even be one of them. The ones that last. This is their story, and therefore yours. It is for them that I have written it all down. Yugi, Joey, Tea, Tristan, Bakura—and Diana. Their table fell hush once more to a silence that was altogether comforting, and familiar.