Title: An Unremembered Dream
Characters: Juudai||Ship: Yubel x Juudai
Chapters: 1-1||Words: 984
Genre: Romance, Drama||Rated: G
Challenges: Word Count Set Boot Camp, YGO GX, #5, 984; Include The Word Boot Camp, #35, clam; Soulshipping Week 2021, day #1, dreams
Notes: This takes place the morning of Juudai's exam for Duel Academia. It's also a soulmate AU. Summary: When one dreams, the dreams are often shared with their soulmate. Before Duel Academia, Juudai has a dream. Now, if he could only remember who the other person was.

Juudai rolled over, blinked a little, then groaned and slammed his eyes closed again. He didn't want to be awake. He'd been in the middle of the most magnificent dream, and he didn't want to stop it.

He crammed his head under the pillow and bit back a groan. He wasn't sure what time it was, only that he'd caught a glimpse of paling sky, which meant it was way too late to sleep again and too early to actually get up and do things.

Today wasn't the day to have a dream like that. He wasn't sure what would have been a good day for it. He wasn't going to tell anyone about it, though. His parents had never been fond of hearing about his dreams regardless. They listened, but he'd seen how they listened - nervous, exchanging glances, a lot more tense than they had any right to be just because he'd dreamed something.

Be better if I could remember it all. What he knew for certain was that he'd enjoyed it, and there had been someone in the dream that had enjoyed being with him. He couldn't remember what they looked like or anything they said, just that this was the person that he'd been meant for, and vice versa.

He'd heard stories. Everyone knew about soulmate dreams - the person you shared your dreams with was your soulmate. He'd seen people talking about it, and most of the time it just seemed a little strange to him. Those who had them seemed about as happy as the proverbial clam about it, though. So he'd just went on with his life and not worried about it for himself. It didn't make much of a difference to him. He barely recalled his dreams in the first place. So as far as Juudai had been concerned - at least until now - he didn't have a soulmate because if he did, he'd share dreams with them, and everyone said those were the most vivid dreams of one's life.

So, if he didn't remember his, then he probably didn't have one. It seemed pretty cut and dried to him. Until now. Until he woke up from that dream, and he knew that he wanted to go back to it, to relive it all and remember it when he opened his eyes again.

And if he mentioned anything about this to his parents, if he told them he though he'd dreamed about his soulmate - well, they wouldn't be mad. But there would be those strange looks, and maybe - maybe...

Juudai vaguely recalled something from when he'd been a little kid, maybe six or seven. He'd been sick then, sick a lot. He'd spent weeks in the hospital. He didn't remember what the problem had been, only that his parents had visited him a lot, and no one else had. He didn't remember if that was because he hadn't had any friends or because their parents hadn't wanted to bring them to a hospital where they might catch whatever it was that he had.

What he did remember was that was when his parents started having those looks whenever he brought up his dreams. So he'd stopped doing it, only mentioning ones he thought wouldn't disturb them. But he'd ended up stopping that most of the time too. His parents never said to, but he knew that was what they wanted.

He tried hard to grab hold of the memory of the dream, wanting to at least get a mental glimpse of that person. What if he met them today? He was going to Duel Academia! If he met whoever he'd dreamed about, he might not know if he didn't remember the dream. He couldn't think of anything about how they looked, not their hair or eyes or a sense of their face or anything.

As hard as tried, though, the best he could get was a vague sense of dragon. That didn't make any sense to him. He rolled over and stared out the window up at the lightening sky. Maybe they were a dragon duelist? He'd never met one of those before. But he wasn't sure about it. That would be kind of cool. Dragons were really powerful, but he trusted his Elemental Heroes to be able to take whatever was thrown at them and come out on top.

Another thought occurred to him. Had they dreamed about him? Were they sitting out there somewhere wondering about him? Could they remember the dream better than he could? Or were they sitting there even half as confused as he was? Juudai honestly couldn't guess. He'd never know until he met the person and asked them himself.

Finally he heaved a great sigh and pushed himself up from the bed. Whoever it was, if he met them today, then maybe they'd dreamed about him too? So that would be something that could connect them. Even if he didn't, then maybe he'd meet them again one day.

For a moment he stopped. Meet them again? As far as he knew, he hadn't met them at all. You never dreamed about your soulmate, with that special magical soulmate dream, if you had already met them. Some people weren't even sure if they'd met theirs because of that. But it also felt right to think that. Someday, somehow, he'd met whoever he'd dreamed about and he wanted to meet them again.

Then he shrugged. It wasn't the first, last, or only time he'd forgotten something in his life. Juudai hoped that he would meet this dragon duelist - or dragon - or whatever. Whoever. If they were his soulmate, then awesome. If they weren't, well, then he would be going to Duel Academia! There couldn't be anything better than that. If there was, he couldn't imagine what it might be. So it probably wasn't worth worrying about.

The End

Notes: Day #1 of Soulshipping Week 2021! Here we go!