When It's No Longer Cliche
To start, I would like to leave a note to the readers and to the reviewer setokaba:
I made a mistake in the previous chapter. The Pythagorean theorem is not Calculus, it is Algebra. Honestly, I did not know this for my lack of education in mathematics. I want to thank setokaba for pointing this out to me, and I want to apologize for my mistake. The only things I actually know about calc I learned in Chemistry.
See! Constructive criticism does work! Thank you setokaba!!
On to the fic…
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Yuugi sat alone at the local Burger World in an out-door booth, happily sipping away at a malt and enjoying his book. The money that Honda had taken back for him truly did pay for some of his dinners, and he only received little scraps of money at home when his drunken father forgot some in the bathroom. Yuugi discovered years ago that Yogosu never noticed it missing, and felt he was more than obliged to take it, considering the fact that his parents paid for so very little for him.
After all, some of that money also paid for the bag of clothes he could get for ten yen at the Good Will or Salvation Army. He was far too small to fit into anything his parents discarded, and they never took him shopping for clothes.
Just as he was about to turn the page, he felt a strange tugging sensation from deep within, and suddenly there was transparent color floating next to him.
No, scratch that, a transparent Yami was sitting next to him. His jaw dropped slack. The ghostly figure next to him smirked.
: You'd better not do that, aibou. No one can see me but you in my spiritual form. They're all going to think you've gone mad.:
Yuugi snorted, closing his mouth and returning to his book. : Please, I've already gone insane.:
Yami peered over his shoulder, looking at the page in front of Yuugi. He tried to read some of the words. riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Yami shook his ghostly head. : Yuugi, how can you understand that? What does it say?:
Yuugi chuckled. : Don't feel too bad, Yami. Most people can't understand this book. There are people who have even written books on this book. The sentence is just describing the course that a river takes as it winds through the countryside, going by a church in Ireland that's called 'Eve and Adam's', and eventually ending up filtering back into the ocean at Howth Castle. It's a very famous sentence that alludes to the entire book.:
The spirit next to him looked quite lost. : Small wonder people can't keep up with you when you speak.:
Yuugi frowned into his book, taking another sip from his malt. : Not that it's such a bad thing, either. All crazed people need to read this book, Finnegans Wake. Perhaps we wouldn't have so many bullies running around.:
Yami said nothing, but slipped back inside of Yuugi's body, waiting for Yuugi to finish with his reading.
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Yuugi took a deep breath as he stood in front of his house. He wasn't looking forward to walking in there. He never looked forward to going home. Were it not so cold out at night he'd sleep out on the streets, but there were too many thugs that could get the better of him. Not to mention Yami couldn't sneak him into the shower. I hate depending on them. I can't wait until I'm out of school. I can't wait until I can get a job and have my own place.
Yuugi turned the doorknob and began to push it open, when suddenly all he saw were spots of pain shooting across his eyelids.
His father had pushed the door closed again, the wood surface hitting Yuugi's right hip hard. The bone was still bruised, and still very tender. The pain sent Yuugi reeling, straight onto his knees. He cried out in pain, clutching his side as he waited for the pulsing agony to subside. Don't show weakness in front of him. He will only beat you down further because of it. Get off your knees!
Yuugi struggled to stand, finding out dismayed that he couldn't. His leg refused to work. I can't get up. I can't get up to save my own damned life! I hate this!!! Yuugi began to feel as desperate as before he finished the puzzle, and his father's angered voice in the back of his mind did nothing to help him.
It was amazing, just how quickly all of this was happening. For a moment, and only the briefest of a moment, he finally understood the term 'I see red.' A blaze of anger laced through his vision, and for a moment he felt his heart swell with a fury so terrible it left him shuddering in its wake.
Yami's anger left him when the spirit finally left his body, attaining his own form as he had done the night before.
Yuugi's father's eyes became wide as he looked around him wildly. "Where the hell did you go, bitch?!"
Yuugi heaved in another shaky breath from the ground, looking up at Yami through his pain infected vision. "Don't kill him," he rasped out.
The spirit's seething blood red eyes turned to look at him confused. "Why not?"
Yogosu looked around himself bewildered, trying to find the voice of his son and another male. Why the hell couldn't he see him? He was just here!
"Because I need the bastard," Yuugi choked, this action a mixture of his agony and dismay at his own dependency. "I will not become a part of the system. I will not endure the stress of foster care. Just…whatever you do, don't kill him."
Yami snarled, revealing a set of rather enlarged canines. His rage was still building. "Let me hurt him."
Yogosu shivered, taking a step back into the house. Perhaps he'd had too much beer that night. He was positive that the whiskey didn't help either.
Yuugi's eyes grew very hard, and unusually cold as he looked up at his father. He nodded his head. "Make sure he feels it."
Yami's rage slowed momentarily as he noticed this change. Was…was his light supposed to be like that? Of course, he did have good reason. Damned good reason. Could he have it his way, both the parents would have been dead a long, long time ago. "Don't look Yuugi. Turn the other way."
Yami was surprised when Yuugi hissed in reply. "No. I want to see it. Don't ever, ever shield me. I will be the judge of what I see, not another. No. One. Else."
Yami's eyes were wide as he sent for the wretched man.
Yogosu tried to run, but suddenly felt cold hands that he could not see grip his neck, and suddenly…
There was a huge tug backwards. Hundreds of hurtful, tiny little tendrils grabbed a firm hold of his spine and brought him back out to the front door, flipped him around, and slowly began to creep up, cutting off his air supply.
Yuugi looked up at the man's pained face, a random memory from his child-hood coming to the front of his mind.
He had been but five years old. Just five, and only the summer before he went to school for the very first time. He had been sitting at the edge of the driveway with nothing to do. None of the children on his block would play with him. The last time they tried his parents yelled at all of them senseless until t hey ran home crying, and Yuugi got a swift kick to the chest.
The ice cream truck was making its usual rounds, and the driver, bless his heart, had seen the poor boy sitting there, and knew from word on the street that his family had little to no money. As some of the other children were getting ice cream, he actually came up to Yuugi and offered him a cone, absolutely free.
Yuugi had been overjoyed. Absolutely thrilled.
His father, on the other hand, had come over just after the truck left, yelled at him for steeling, and threw the ice cream on the ground. Before Yuugi even had a chance to cry, he felt a sharp sting on his cheek, and the red mark from the slap lasted for two weeks.
The pain in Yuugi's hip and the harsh sounds of choking from his father brought him back to attention. Purple smoke was swirling around Yogosu's neck, visibly immobilizing the man from his spine up. His nerves were nothing but conduits for pain at the moment, and the only reason he wasn't screaming was because he was gagging so much.
Yes…Yuugi's hip. It had been badly bruised for a bout a month now. He'd come home late one night after studying his eyeballs out at the local library. His mother had met him at the door angered, slapped him across the face, and…
It was the only time she'd actually cheered for her husband.
Yogosu met him with a baseball bat.
Perhaps his bone had been chipped. That would explain its reluctance to heal.
Yuugi tried to stand again, utterly failing. His sound of pain brought Yami out of his gleeful revere of torture, flinging the worthless man back into the house and rushing to Yuugi's side.
"Easy," Yami soothed, pulling him up and allowing Yuugi to rest against him. "We'll get this healed." Yuugi could only shake his head in reply, allowing Yami to carry him into the house, up the steps and into his miserable bedroom.
Gently laying him down on the bed, Yami began to remove Yuugi's pants, revealing the right hip that was now blacker than the first time he'd seen it.
Tears streamed down Yuugi's face as Yami touched it, and the teenager couldn't help by cry out, his body shaking under the strain of the injured nerves. "Hurts…hurts so much…" he sobbed.
Yami closed his eyes as he concentrated, leaning his forehead against Yuugi's shoulder, as the teen could not lay down flat comfortably. Yuugi latched on to him tightly, afraid to let go.
It was longer this time before the spirit finished, helping Yuugi to lie back down carefully. "Don't move it for some time, Yuugi. Otherwise, it will never heal."
Yuugi shook his head, pulling the blanket closer. "I can't feel it."
"I numbed it for you. At least now you'll be able to sleep. It should be a great deal better by the morning."
He nodded his head. "Stay with me? I didn't shiver last night with the cold. I don't know how you do it, but it's so warm when you touch me."
Yami kicked off his boots and scooted next to Yuugi, pulling him close. Funny, the spirit thought to him self. I thought the same thing about you.
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The teenager gave a triumphant grin as he paraded into homeroom that morning. Honda raised an eyebrow in suspicion, waiting to see what the mutt pulled out of his sleeve. "All right, what did you find?"
Jou waggled his eyebrows. "Oh, guess."
Honda sighed. "No."
The blonde frowned for a moment. "You sure know how to take all of the fun out of swiping sump' thin." He sat down in the seat in front of his brunette friend. "I got them."
"Them," Honda asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I got the transcripts for the runt! They're right here!" He brandished a slightly crinkled piece of paper.
Honda snatched it up quickly, not even bothering to ask where Jou got them, or how he managed to get something that's supposed to be confidential. The more he read, the more he couldn't believe it. "All right, get this. The kid's got straight A's in his advanced English, Art, Literature, and Music classes. He's got average grades in his Advanced History and Government classes, and he's got really poor grades in his regular Math and Science classes!"
"Really," Jou asked. "I didn't get a chance to look at 'em yet." He grabbed the sheet. "Oh my god, he's got a D in Chemistry! Damn! He's as bad as we are at dat!"
Honda scratched his chin. "So he's not an overall smart guy. He's just got really fancy talk and really fancy art. That's not too bad, ya think?"
Jou shook his head. "I couldn't tell ya, pal. I really couldn't."
A couple of girls walked into the classroom, whispering madly with each other. "Did you hear what happened to the math teacher, Mr. Tsuki," one of them asked. "Someone said they saw him walking down Seventh Street last night in his pajamas, muttering something about not being good enough! Can you believe it?"
"Yeah," another one said. "They've got a substitute for us today! Some old hag by the name of Rei."
Jou turned to Honda. "You believe any of dat?"
Honda paled a little. "I'm the one who called the police on the old guy. I'm telling you, man, I have never seen anything like it. He was just…it's like he wasn't really there."
Jou's eyes became very wide. This was, indeed, a very strange thing.
Yes…strange.
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Yuugi sat down underneath the shade of the oak tree that was in the school lunch area outside. Normally, he might have been able to finish his book the night before…but…well. That didn't happen. He'd fallen asleep abruptly, and woke up at about one, asking Yami to help him into the shower. That was one thing he refused to go without.
School lunch consisted of mashed potatoes and gravy with chicken nuggets. The joke around school was that the day they served that was called 'liquid fat day.' Yuugi thought that the term was rather fitting.
The sudden disappearance of Mr. Tsuki had him quite irked. Especially considering the fact that when he woke up, he could have sworn that it felt as though Yami had just lain back down.
Perhaps it was just in his imagination.
"Hey, Motou! I think it's about time you pay up. Some twat took the money I took from you, so you're going to have to pay up a bit more."
Yuugi looked up worriedly as the voice of Ushiro bombarded his eardrums. Oh, no. This was bad.
Suddenly, someone hit him from behind, pushing the puzzle around his neck up…
And straight into Ushiro's hands. The bully somehow managed to pry away one piece, which was none other than the eye in the very center of one side.
"No!" Yuugi cried. "Give it back!" He was starting to panic. He couldn't feel Yami inside of him anymore. The spirit was now trapped back in the puzzle. He stood up shakily.
"You want it, shrimp?" Ushiro asked. "Cough up the dough."
Yuugi winced. "I don't have any. I hardly ever do. Please, give it back to me."
The bully's crony from behind him stepped forward. "You really want it back?"
"Yes," Yuugi stressed.
Ushiro's eyes gleamed, noticing the school pool a short distance away. "Go fetch, Motou." He let the gold piece fly.
Panic clouded his mind, and Yuugi dropped his lunch and ran towards the pool, not even bothering to take off his coat as he dove for the puzzle piece.
Ushiro felt a punch to his face he didn't even see coming, and suddenly the punk who had taken money from him earlier and his buddy had him and his crony on the ground, down for the count. "Dat was a dirty trick," Jou spat. "Leave the shrimp alone. He aint got any money!"
Yuugi, meanwhile, was heading straight down into the depths of the pool. Why, oh why did it have to land in the deep end? This pool went fifteen feet deep! Would he have enough air?
It didn't matter. He had to get to the piece. He could see the rather large hunk of gold glimmering. The eye was almost twinkling at him, enticing him to retrieve it.
Finally, after what felt like hours of diving, he reached it, and immediately snapped the piece back into place.
Yuugi suddenly realized that he had another problem on his hands. His body, it its panic, had used up much more oxygen than if he had been calm when he swam. He was out of enough air to kick back to the surface.
In a flash of gold light Yami was beside him in the water, pulling him close. : Let me help you breathe,: he sent
Yuugi nodded, yet more panic rising in his through.
He was surprised when Yami pushed his lips against his, but out of lack of air his mouth burst open to suck in a breath full of water-
And received a warm, spicy air instead.
Yami had enough breath in him to allow Yuugi the chance to breathe. When Yuugi believed that he had the strength to, he let go and motioned upward, beginning to kick. Yami helped him up, using what was undoubtedly magic to help him reach the surface faster.
Yuugi's head broke the surface, and he sucked in precious air, his lungs feeling as though they were about to collapse.
Two pairs of hands helped to pull him out of the water, and Yuugi looked up into the concerned faces of Jou and Honda. Yami had disappeared again.
"Are you all right, kid?" Jou asked. "That puzzle must mean sump 'thin to ya to go diving for it like dat."
Yuugi nodded vigorously. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Honda looked at him quizzically. "What happened down there? For a while it looked like there was two of ya!"
Yuugi shook his head, unruffled by the question. "Just the ripples of the water causing distortion. It was just me."
Honda looked skeptical, but didn't press the matter.
Yuugi sat at the edge of the pool, reflecting what had just happened. He had been so terrified. The only thing he could think about was getting that puzzle piece back.
And Yami.
He suddenly realized just how dependent he was becoming on the spirit, and he shuddered, hugging himself. He shrugged off his wet coat and let the dry breeze hit him. He hated being dependent. The element that one became dependent on could suddenly vanish, and then one would be left lost and broken. He couldn't let that happen. He was damned and determined to survive, and so far showing a need for anything beyond self-sufficiency had shown to be volatile, and the sure-to-be end of him.
"Hey, are you sure you're all right, man?" Jou asked. "Maybe we should take you to the nurse."
Yuugi shook his head. "No, I'm fine. Really." He stood shakily, grabbing his wet coat. "Thanks for the help. I…I really appreciate it." He turned big purple eyes over to the two, and let them know without words he was filled with gratitude.
He walked as quickly as he could to a dark corner that was out of the way where no one would see him, put his coat down, and held the puzzle closely.
Yami was out and next to him, holding him close. "You're not all right."
"No, really, I am fine," Yuugi reiterated.
"Not physically," Yami said. "Mentally. You're afraid of how much you think you need me."
Yuugi winced. "I'm…I'm sorry. I've never been able to get the pieces apart, I don't know now why one came off. It just seems so delicate now…what if something happens, and I become too dependent on you, and then you're not there? Where will it leave me?"
Yami silenced him with a soft touch to his lips with his thumb. "The puzzle lost a piece because you did not believe that I would come out right away. You have to always trust me Yuugi, or our bond will not work properly."
Yuugi shook his head, hiding in Yami's chest. "I'm just…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know you said it was dark in there, and to be ripped away from life again so quickly…what if I fail you?"
Yami held him closer. "You won't. I believe in you. And you have to stop doubting yourself, and you have to stop trying to take on the responsibility of everything happening to you. Everyone needs someone, aibou. I don't care who you are. But you are an amazing person to have been so alone for so long and yet not walk brokenly. Stop. Doubting." He was silent for a moment, and the next thing he said had a hint of almost pleading. " Please."
Yuugi closed his eyes, wrapping his arms around Yami's neck. "Don't leave me, do you hear? Damn it, don't leave me."
Yami ran his fingers through Yuugi's hair gently. "Never. Don't let me go back in the dark, all right? It's cold…and I don't like the dark."
Yuugi could have almost laughed at the irony of the statement, but instead chose to cry into the crook of the spirit's neck. "I won't."
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Review? Please?
