Disclaimer: That's right, I don't.

A/N: I'm taking a risk in this chapter since I don't think I've done enough of that (hikari: hahahahah), I'm going to ignore that..... Oh yes, and this chapter is going by the assumption that all the hikaris, at one point or another, can have a civilized conversation with their yamis. Anyways please read, review and hopefully enjoy and thank you for your patience.

Warning: May slightly twist the mind.

Entry 12

Façade

That's all it was, had been and perhaps always will be. A façade.

But what had he accomplished in wasting so much energy sustaining such a barrier when he knew it'll only last for so long? Someone will always get past. Somehow they see through it, almost like remote viewing, and it's always the person you'll least expect. Yes his very own hikari, the one he's furthest from found a crevice hidden far off in the corner of the fortress and squeezed through. Detect the irony yet?

So why'd he do it?

The real question should be 'why would I do it?' Yes I can empathize. Maybe it's because we're supposed to be a part of each other, or something of the sort. I'm beginning to understand this concept but it can still be a tad iffy at times, sort of like the notion of significant figures. Strange how I can identify with many of the things he's experiencing even if I may never have gone through them myself. Many things. Too many. And to think we're opposites. What else is behind this veil of darkness?

Then again, I'm also a hypocrite.

Oh sure I can question, question, question all I want. I can loath even, but that doesn't mean a thing. Not a thing. I've sat and stared out to a world of nothingness and wondered where I belong as well. I've discreetly let my emotions run wild when I thought no one was looking. And yeah I've harboured a disliking of one person or another during some point on my life. Don't we all? You know.... as human beings? Gosh to think of my yami once existing as a human being (and still, in a sense, is) is quite mind-boggling, but I'm just accepting the facts. It is as true today as it ever was.

Sure, he's referred to as 'The Darkness,' but exactly what is darkness anyways? Something that scares little children so much, they are afraid to go to take a wiz alone at night? A state or side of the earth is suspended in when the sun 'sets;' due to planetary rotation? Or perhaps to the believers, an existence without God. Being 'without light' is way too simple an explanation. To understand what 'darkness' is you'd have to consult a yogi or if that's too easy, climb up on a mountain peak and seek enlightenment for yourself.

Darkness is just...... black.

Just black?

Really now, interesting.

So, then my yami is what? A black blob? That's what darkness is, isn't it? Basically if you're not into that whole Zen and incense stuff that's where you'd draw the line of what you think darkness is. Darkness is not a state of being. So my yami is dead, or is it alive? Un-dead? Semi-alive? An aura of some sort? Darkness is a state without light. So, if I stand right beside my yami, he'd vaporize like some sort of Halloween special vampire?

Darkness appears when the sun has set. Than why is it that I can still see him (quite vividly) in broad daylight, appearing whenever he wished and often almost startling me into a heart attack?

And to think my yami made it seem so simple. Yami darkness, hikari light. Dark and light are super-glued together eternally, no questions asked. He must have realise I'm not quite so dense anymore, since he's no longer trying to hammer that idea into my head. Or maybe I've refused to acknowledge the matter one too many times and he's decided to give up and let me think what I want to think. Maybe even figure it out for myself. Smart yami. The truth is the truth no matter how much I try to manoeuvre around it or attempt to mold it into my perception of reality.

Reality

What a laugh. That sense of level-headedness had left me long ago; lost in dreams so vivid I could touch what is untouchable, see into the cosmos and live a life of fairy tales and mythology. Elysian. Was that really just the morphine whispering into my ears? I wonder if he goes through the same thing. If he is indeed just 'darkness,' than obviously not. How can a patch of black think for him (it's?) self? It can't.

The time I saw my yami thinking to himself, must have just been a dream.

What else could it have been? I'm torn between two worlds, neither one being imaginary or reality. Or if either is, I couldn't distinguish between the differences. I've just allowed myself to be taken from one side of the border to the other. At any given time or place. Morphine.

No yami wasn't just darkness period. Yami was darkness something else something else something else. 'Yami,' the word in itself, merely describes the simplicity of his state of being, that being the other half of me, the light. As for everything else, the word 'yami' means nothing. Just something that'll confuse a person into thinking he's a dark abyss leading to nowhere but oblivion. In a sense that may be true, the ones he's sent to the shadow realm or world or whatever are doomed to be suspended in limbo but that doesn't mean he is nothing but a black hole. No one deserves to be labelled that way, not even my yami. Not even my yami. This attachment is freakishly disturbing. But since I'm beginning to admit to things I've long since wanted to push away, yeah I'm attached to him. And I won't bother explaining in what way since it's been repeated so many times, the word itself has lost all meaning. Sometimes I feel this attachment through the 'mind-link' but most of the time; it's more of a faint feeling. Somewhat similar to the kind of bond twins have with each other but, like everything else about me, much more complicated.

I admit I don't necessarily like it most of the time. My thoughts are my own. They are private. Private meaning not desired for anyone else to know. But that's completely unavoidable when he's literally my other half. Other half. That phase is still so weird after all this time. I mean 'other half' is the term lovey dovey couples use for each other. And we are definitely far from that. One thing that eases my mind is knowing he doesn't want his thoughts accessible to me either. Scrap the literal term 'yami'. He thinks, therefore he's not just a blob of darkness. Anyways, my yami does think and that's what makes this whole thing as complicated as it is. Come to think about it, if hikari (me) is this multidimensional, than yami must be something like that at well. In that yin and yang symbol, aren't the two halves the same size?

I found him thinking to himself.

He mustn't have wanted anyone, especially me, to know since he hid himself in the most private place I could think of. His soul room. See what I mean by the differences between what's imaginary and what's real? I guess it could be described as a world within a world. A place full of strange rooms filled with emptiness and corridors that led to nowhere. My own soul room was mixed up within this bunch and it took me awhile to find it, but my curiosity actually paid off that time.

He'd mentioned these 'soul rooms' before but I waved it off as I did everything he told me up to that point. It was very difficult to believe there were rooms and stuff inside my treasure and to think it went on forever was just....impossible. I didn't even bother to think about the meaning of the word. Gibberish, all of it. That is, until I found my soul room, once again proving he was right and I was wrong.

This 'soul room,' my soul room was something I realised I could only understand when I've been in it for myself. Even if I'd accepted the explanation, I still wouldn't have understood what it was. My soul room was a place where I felt as sense of belonging. It was a part of me, designed for me and meant only to accommodate me. A piece of my own soul, so to speak. But it was more than that. Such things that could never be explained and understood only experienced and understood. And that was where I found him, in his soul room. His own domain.

It was no surprise that his soul room looked very different from mine. For once thing, a beautiful cream-coloured Persian guarded the entrance. It was harmless enough, no one would have known that it was guarding the room; merely hanging around it was more like it. Cats. Well, he was very close to his Egyptian heritage. The feline must have thought I was him, so it freely stepped aside when I approached the door. I didn't know now or even then why I did it, all I knew was that I wanted to go in. Must have been that 'connection' we had.

I didn't hear me enter. That was what I thought when I first creaked open the heavy door and slipped inside. The first thing I noted was the unusual patches of shadows splayed everywhere around the room. It was almost like a funhouse, obscured and devoid of any spatial logic. Like one of those rooms you think are on a slat but really aren't. Except this one just had shadows hovering where there shouldn't have been any. Come to think about it, there wasn't even a light source in the room. At least I didn't see any.

Stranger yet was the window centred in the far wall. More of a square hole, really. It must have been how ancient windows were modeled since glass wasn't in existence back then. It really was his soul room. From where I stood, the window lead to nothing but blackness, as if a think layer of dark paint coated the area leading outside the window. He must have seen something different though because he was perched on the ledge, appearing to be hypnotized by the nothingness beyond the room.

All shields were down. That was the first thing that hit me when I saw him there. Not only did I see it with my eyes but felt it within my mind and the core of my body as well. There was a difference in the way he carried himself, he wasn't quite so...rigid, no longer so hard and stone-like. The aura around him was calming, but not quite in the warm and serene sense. It was more of a submissive, almost dead kind of calm. Not something I was afraid of, mind you; it was not the type of calmness one would be too trilled to embrace. But it was a calmness and that in itself was a rare thing to see in him.

Even his expression reflected upon it. The shape edges of his features dulled down a bit, even appeared softer and more understanding. Almost melancholy. He had one arm resting loosely on a bent knee and the other laying lazily on his lap. An unusually relaxing position for one who always appeared on guard and alert.

I decided not disturb him, instead hiding myself in one of the shadows just to observe from afar. No, I wasn't snooping, I was.... being observant. And what I'd already seen provoked me to stay and find out more. What was my yami really like? Why hadn't I seen him like this before? Why did he need to hide this side of him from me? How often had he stolen away into this private room and gazed out at the nothingness? Why was I so curious in the first place? All those questions would be answered, I assumed, if I just stayed a little longer.

"Hikari."

But of course things weren't that easy. He was much more in tuned with his surroundings than I gave him credit for. This was his soul room after all.

"Yeah?" I slowly got out of my hiding spot but didn't make any sign of getting any closer to him.

"I want you to look at this." He pointed out into the blackness he had been so intently focused.

"All I see is darkness from here." I noted.

"Come here." He stated, a little more harshly this time.

I stepped toward the window and peered outside, or at least what 'outside' would have been. Still nothing but darkness.

"Sorry, I still don't see anything."

"You're correct, there's nothing out there but darkness."

That was beginning to irritate me, as most of our serious conversations had made me. He had the tendency to weave around things rather than tell them out straight.

He sat quietly for awhile, drifting back into that reminiscing state of his. Somehow my last statement felt wrong. It made me feel ignorant around him and it looked as if he was almost hurt by my stupidity. He'd expected it though; he knew what I was like long before I knew what he was like.

"Have you been out there before?" he finally broke the uncomfortable silence.

"No. And.....I don't' really want to go out there." I was beginning to wonder what he had been implying by asking that.

"What do you think it's like out there hikari?" Surprising that his tone hadn't changed that entire time.

Hmm, I'd never really thought about that before. And when I it came to mind, I really want to think about it. Thinking about it meant that someday that darkness would happen to me. "I don't know, maybe very scary or... lonely?"

"Really? How scared, how lonely?"

"I guess enough to drive a person insane if he doesn't get out of there in time."

"How long would that be?"

"I guess about a couple of days or so."

"Only days?" he finally tore his gaze away from the darkness and onto me. His uncharacteristically calm face actually scared me a little.

"W-well yeah I mean it's dark, lonely, silence, possibly cold. How could anyone survive that for very long without losing his mind?"

"True."

He studied me for awhile. Somehow he seemed so much wiser than before. Maybe it was the effect this soul room had on him. Or maybe thinking that intensely sparked some sort of change. The closeness was very unnerving.

"You've healed already?"

"Well, I went to my soul room to get better. For some reason I heal faster there than I do in....real life, I noticed that from that huge cut I got the other day from cutting vegetables. Uh, um......thanks." The last part came out much quieter.

"For what?"

"I would have bled to death."

"Than I would have as well."

"Still," I tried to relax a bit, "I don't know why but I found that kind of thrilling. I mean it was dangerous, yeah but how many people have been victims of convenience store robberies and lived to tell about it?" For a second there he looked startled, then his expression changed to "that hit to your head must have been hard."

"You....."

"Oh come on yami, you've seen much worst than that. What about those stories you told me about the wars and massacres and stuff."

He continued staring at me and again felt the irritation rise. Fortunately, he turned back to the window and resumed where he left off.

"How about five thousand years?"

"Of what?"

He pointed outside the window, "Of wandering out there, in the darkness."

I felt my stomach clench up without really knowing why, had he really..."I'd die."

"A soul cannot 'die.'"

"I'd go insane." I replied bluntly.

"Either that or become one with the darkness."

"What?"

"Do you think I'm insane?"

I felt a bit of his sadness seep into my own emotions and I couldn't help but feel sorry for him at that moment, "You were out there, in the dark, all those years weren't you?"

"Does that justify what you think of me?"

"I don't know. You seem to change so often."

"Do you think I'm insane then?"

I lowered my head; the coldness of that conversation was chilling my bones, "If that is what you are, then yes. If not, I don't know."

"Anyone would lose his mind alone out there within days."

"I would."

Silence

"I knew you were intending to come here so told Seueth to stand aside."

"The cat? Why?"

"I wanted to know this from your perspective."

"Well, now that I know, I'm not sure I want to know. And I don't think I want to find out any more."

"The atmosphere in here must be taking its toll on you." He noted. I guess his pattern of speech was something to get used to. He changed the subject so abruptly, maybe because he wanted to hide something from me.

He was right; the air in the place was thicker than mine, and musty like an old tomb. "Can I leave?" I didn't mean for that to sound rude, it was just too, uncomfortable facing him this way.

"Go ahead, Seueth will let you out."

The cat was there again. This time on the inside of the door selecting who could exit, rather than enter. He gracefully leaped aside with a pounce and I waked out. Something troubled my mind as I headed for my own soul room. It was almost like what he said opened my mind to things that have never crossed my mind before. Thoughts that were almost revaluating. Was he insane? Or were all those years of wandering and thinking forced some sort of enlightenment. Maybe both? Nether?

Darkness needs a new meaning.

End Entry


Replies:

TCGgirl124: Yeah I did mention the character's hair in the last chapter but all I really said was that he didn't like the nurse ruffling it, so yeah. You're right, this story is going to end as soon as I reveal who the hikari is and I already know how I'm going to do that so it won't be an accidental thing or anything like that. I'm hoping for this story to be approximately 20 chapters give or take a chapter or so because I'd like to include a bit more characterization before it ends. Thanks for the review!

Sphincter: Hmm.... There are lots of stories out there about Yami taking over Yugi's life and then Yugi get depressed and hurting himself so I'm not quite sure which story you're referring to. Sorry I can't help you there. Pretty common storyline when you think about it. Well anyways, thanks for the review!

Dark Magician Girl / Hikaru: Yeah, hehe, well it was sort of mysterious wasn't it. Sorry about the long update. No ideas. /Thinks/ is interesting your favourite word or something? Lol, you seem to use it a lot. Thanks for the review!

Laptop: Thanks for liking this and from the review!

Fushicho Hime: /Grins/ Yay, someone noticed! Yup Elysian is the world of dreams and a place that exists in the after life. Honestly, I am not entirely sure what it is because it wasn't the actual Elysian but a reference from Sailor Moon. I don know that Tartarus is is a place of torture and torment for evil souls or something like that. Hehe, pathetic but I liked it. Thanks for the review!

Angel in Disguise8: Darling, congratulations! You finally managed to clear your mailbox of all the garbage I sent you, lol. And to think you went through all that pain and suffering just for me, see that's why I dedicated "Little White Envy" to you. Duh! Well, glad you like them. Ah intriguing, that's a new one. I've seen many different words used to describe this but intriguing, /smiles/ thanks for the review!

Amber Eyes23: Interesting that you should mention that. This may have come up in the manga but I'm not sure since I've never read it but I don't think it's in the anime. When you think about it, when has any of the yamis ever injured someone without a reason? They've always done it for a reason whether that reason is power, greed, or defence. I might be wrong but I think people get that impression because so many fanfics have them. Thanks for the review!

padfootgirl126: Thanks for the liking this, and the review!

Mako-Magic: Yeah Yami was a psycho in the beginning too. That makes all of them I guess. I included that little snippet in the beginning I wasn't sure if some people knew he was that way or not. Meh, I only recently found that out myself. Thanks for the review!

Saiyan Jedi: Lol, morphine, I found that funny as well. To be honest, I got the word "omaasan" from other fanfics and according to them it has a meaning. I'm surprised that its not a word because many other authors seem to be unanimous about it's meaning. I would have used the definition from my dictionary but it was just too weird. Thanks for the review!

Insane Penguin: Hehe, that's what the story's designed to do, mess with people's minds. Thanks for the review!

Karlabob: I like you reasoning, can't believe you read this so quickly. Remember, all the details count. Thanks for the review!