Chapter 3: Thinking Straight

Yori tried her best to focus on the duel, but half of her attention was on breathing, and the other half kept wandering back to Haku, which, in the end, just left her frustrated and cold. Finally, she just closed her eyes and focused everything on breathing against the frigid wind.

Then something warm wrapped across her shoulders.

She blinked in surprise and turned to find Yami standing beside her. He'd draped his jacket over her shoulders, and though his face turned a bit red under her gaze, he didn't take it back.

She didn't bother arguing and instead slid her freezing arms into the sleeves, which were still warm from his body heat.

"No one would blame you," he said quietly, "if you needed a break."

There was really no point to being stubborn. The tremble in her legs wasn't just from the cold, and if she was chosen to duel next, she'd never manage to stand through a direct attack. It would be stupid of her to make it all the way to the finals only to throw it away on a display of toughness.

/Come with me?/ she asked mentally, partly to get the warmth from her bracelet and partly because she couldn't bring herself to say the words out loud.

His eyes widened a bit, but he nodded, so she crept behind the others on the platform—not a hard task since Joey was practically throwing himself at the dueling platform as he cheered and the others were just as focused—and made her way to the elevator. Yami entered just behind her, and as the doors slid closed, Yori couldn't help a sigh of relief. So much for her bravado with Seto that she would be just fine under extreme conditions.

Yami opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to decide against it, and they descended in silence, Yori gripping the hand rail as her stomach tried to overturn her sense of balance.

They reached the bottom and stepped out into the hall. Since it was warm inside the blimp, Yori started to shrug Yami's jacket off, but he raised a hand.

"Keep it."

She nodded and tried to ignore the way her mind reminded her that Haku had never been so considerate. Not that she ever would have wanted his jacket when it housed a cobra.

With a sigh, she rubbed a hand over her face. She wanted to ask if Yami knew what it felt like to have bad memories that just wouldn't die, but the question would have been insensitive on several levels, so she didn't know what to say. But as she made her way back to the lounge, he kept pace with her, and if the silence bothered him, he didn't say so.

The left side of the lounge from the entrance had a long drink bar with silver bar stools and plush red seat cushions. Yori probably should have gone for a seat at one of the tables, one with back support, but she hopped on a stool instead and caught the attention of the KaibaCorp employee serving as bartender.

"Anything hot to drink?" she asked.

"Green tea in several varieties," he said, "as well as—"

"That's perfect. Roasted?"

"Hojicha coming right up, ma'am. Two cups?"

Yori cast a glance at Yami, and he blinked like he'd missed everything, so she just said, "Yes, please."

The man disappeared into the adjoining kitchen, and Yori let out another sigh. She picked at the rubber edge of the bar with her thumbnail.

Yami leaned forward, folding his elbows on the counter. "You seem conflicted."

Although "conflicted" was putting it lightly, she nodded.

"Is it something I've done?"

"No." She winced and shook her head. "It's not you."

"Pity."

She glanced up in surprise, and his vibrant gaze was steady.

"If it was something I'd done," he said, "it might be something I could fix."

His words warmed her more than his jacket.

"It's not you," she repeated quietly. "But it's someone."

He frowned at that.

"Who?" he demanded sharply, as if he was already halfway out the door to fight for her honor.

She snorted at the thought—as if she'd ever had any honor.

"There's a lot you don't know about me," she mumbled.

"There's a lot I don't know about me, too," he quipped back.

She smiled, then scrunched up her nose. "Don't make me smile. I'm being depressed right now. I'm brooding."

He chuckled, bumping her knee with his. The action spread goosebumps across her whole body, and she was glad when the waiter chose that moment to reappear, two steaming teacups held aloft on a tray. He placed one on the bar in front of each of them, and Yori wrapped both hands around the cup, her cold fingers tingling at the warmth.

Yami peered forward into the light caramel liquid, breathing in the steam.

"Never had it?" Yori almost managed another smile. "It's sweeter than regular green tea, and I like the color better."

Not that she ever had many opportunities to drink tea. It was a luxury, and sometimes she couldn't even afford the necessities.

The waiter disappeared into the kitchen once more. In the silence, Yori used her fingertips to slowly spin her teacup, watching the liquid tilt gently against the pink-rimmed ceramic.

She wanted to talk to Yami.

She wanted to tell him everything.

She didn't know how.

It was Yami who spoke first.

"The first thing I remember after Yuugi completed the puzzle"—he kept his eyes on his tea as he spoke—"was seeing his parents. He was thinking about them when he completed it, thinking about how proud they would be. Except my mind was all caught up in his, so I thought they were my parents."

Yori's eyes widened. He glanced at her, shrugged a shoulder.

"That's how it was at first," he went on. "I felt all of Yuugi's memories and thoughts like a flood, and when people saw me, they called me Yuugi, so that's who I was. It always felt off, of course, but if I tried to find any other answer, any other identity, I found nothing."

Yori shook her head. "That sounds horrible."

He smiled grimly. "The horror came later—once I realized the nothing was my identity. Once I had to separate myself from my parents and grandpa, from my friends at school and school itself, when I had to accept that my lifetime of memories wasn't mine at all, tuck everything away in a separate folder titled 'Yuugi's,' and live with the fact that all I had to myself was darkness."

His words twisted Yori's heart in a familiar way. She knew what it was like to look back at herself and see nothing, but at least she'd never had the false hope of an identity she had to surrender.

"Is that why you named yourself Yami?"

"Pegasus did that." Yami lifted his teacup, hesitated. "His Millennium Eye could read minds, but it took time and effort, so when Yuugi and I dueled him, we switched back and forth in an attempt to keep cards and strategies secret. Whenever I appeared, he called me Yami Yuugi. The dark Yuugi. I just thought it was fitting."

He sipped at his tea, and Yori did the same with hers. The nutty flavor spread comfort through her body as much as the warmth. She'd always thought if she had a home, she would want the kitchen to smell like roasted green tea, warm and sugary with a slight burn at the edges to say it was real.

"I think it's fitting, too." She set her teacup down, breathed the scent in deeply.

He looked away. "I can't blame you after the duel with Pandora."

She shook her head. "I love the dark."

He blinked at her. Frowned.

"The dark was what allowed me to run away from a neglectful foster family," she said. "When I was first living on the streets and didn't know how to make money, night gave me a safe time to steal food. Darkness hid me from gangs and people I crossed. It saved me from beatings. It saved my life."

A bit of heat rose in her face since she wasn't exactly painting herself in a glamorous light. But she pushed on anyway.

"You saved me from Pandora, and if you used the dark to do it, I don't care. I trust you—and don't forget the first time I did that was also in the dark."

A gentle smile crossed his face. His shoulders relaxed, and he settled forward to finish his tea.

"Thank you," he said quietly just before he took a sip.

Yori smiled in return. Her mind raced as she finished her tea. He'd confided something personal in her, and it was the perfect time to tell him about Haku.

But every time she tried, her throat seized and her words died in the memory of gold.

Finally, she set down her empty teacup, turning away from the bar.

"This is a tournament," she declared, "and we've had a severe lack of fun."

Yami smirked. "Are you challenging me to a duel?"

"Yes, I am." She pointed at the corner of the lounge opposite the giant bingo machine, which had been arranged into a small karaoke stage. "Your vocals versus mine."

He choked on the last of his tea, his entire face paling. She laughed.

"Come on, King of Games. Let's see some backbone outside your home field."

"I've never sung," he said. "Ever."

She gave him a gentle push on the shoulder, urging him to his feet. "Then this is even more perfect. We're making memories."

His ears flamed red, and though he followed her, his protests continued all the way to the stage.

"It's just the two of us," she said, turning on the machine. A list of blue genre categories appeared. "And even if you're completely tone deaf, I won't judge. So sing with me?"

She offered him a microphone, keeping the second for herself. After a long hesitation, he took it, wincing as he did so.

"Do you know how karaoke works?"

He nodded stiffly. "Yuugi and his friends are regulars."

"Do you have a favorite song?"

"Not hardly."

She laughed. "Well, if you see something familiar, shout it out."

She scrolled through Japanese pop options, looking for something with a moderate tempo, easy lyrics, and a catchy tune. Samples of each song played as she scrolled, and just before she passed Smile Bomb by Mawatari Matsuko, Yami stopped her by mumbling something about Yuugi's favorite anime.

"Looks like we have a winner." Yori pressed play. "If you want, I'll sing the verses, and you can join me on the chorus. It's a good way to ease into karaoke."

He nodded, knuckles white around the mic. The instrumental kicked up, jazzy and lit with spunk, and when the lyrics began scrolling, Yori hit her entrance perfectly. Her raw throat ached, and her current vocal tone wouldn't win her any awards, but the music lifted her spirit, and that was what mattered most.

As she sang, she swayed back and forth on the small stage, purposely bumping Yami with her shoulder, her elbow, her hip, until he was no longer strangling the microphone, until he smiled and then laughed. She sang with exaggerated vowels, and she tossed in a "hey" here and there until she could see in his face that fun had won out over the intimidation.

When the chorus came, he raised his mic.

And he sang.

And Yori's heart flipped around her ribcage like a gymnast on the uneven bars. Her voice caught in her throat, choking out the first line.

He had a beautiful tenor that danced between notes with a confidence that belied his earlier insecurity, and though he clipped the edges of some and slid into others, his tone was as clear and vibrant as his eyes—and it captured her in just the same way.

"You're amazing," Yori said into the mic.

He blushed, fumbled the next line, and said, "You're attempting sabotage."

"Never."

The notes rolled by like a passing train, and Yori caught the start of the next line like a hitchhiker grabbing for a car, almost missing it as her heart pounded away in her chest to distract her from the beat. Yami joined her after a few words, and they finished out the chorus together.

To her surprise, he didn't drop off at the next verse but stayed strong, so she let him carry it, adding her voice as an echo to a word here or there. When the chorus circled around again, she switched to an improv harmony, and though she did mess him up on some of the notes, when the harmony worked, their voices blended like they were made for each other. The thought made Yori blush, but it didn't make her stop.

And for the first time since waking up in the hospital, she wasn't thinking of Haku at all.

/Hey!/ the spirit of the ring barked.

There was no real reason to call out, nothing he needed his host for, but the boy had been quiet ever since asking him to take over in the tag-team duel, hadn't said a single thing about the spirit's continued control, hadn't given a single protest. And then when the bracelet user had barged into their shared consciousness, he'd had the audacity to say he was fine.

After the participants of the first duel had been selected, the spirit had split from the group with a determination to seek out the lone finalist separated from the flock, the Millennium Item he could feel pulsing in isolation. Instead, with every step he took closer to the necklace, his mind took a step further away, until at last he was consumed with frustration at his vessel's actions and came to a screeching halt in the center of an empty hallway.

/HEY!/ he snapped again, since the boy had dared ignore him.

Ryou manifested in the hallway, one eyebrow raised like the brat he was.

They stood there for several seconds, the spirit glaring, the kid staring dispassionately back.

Then Ryou disappeared.

The spirit could have killed him.

He closed his eyes and followed the boy into the hallway that held both of their soul rooms just in time to see Ryou enter his and close the door behind him.

The spirit kicked the door in.

"Don't be a coward," he spat.

Ryou raised that eyebrow again, busy painting a life-sized figurine that didn't exist. Gods, his subconscious was so cluttered. The large board beneath their feet was overflowing with tiny forest details, blades of grass across sweeping plains, and lightning-shaped rivers tracking down pebbled mountaintops. It was like a cartographer had vomited onto the floor and then four of his co-workers had added sympathy contributions. To top it off, the board was packed with more giant figurines than any game board had a right to hold, like five chess sets had lost their checkered homelands and been dumped together on the next closest one. The spirit had to twist and wind his way through an army to even reach the kid.

Since Ryou was still being silent, the spirit kicked the figurine he was working on. It toppled sideways, forcing Ryou to reach out to steady it. The boy gave him a look but still said nothing.

"Say it," the spirit sneered.

Ryou took a deep breath.

The spirit waited.

The boy turned away. He dropped the paintbrush in his hand, and it dissolved into nothing before it ever touched the floor.

"What?" the spirit demanded. "You've never had a problem speaking to me before, so spit it out. Tell me to give your body back."

Ryou glanced over his shoulder. "Do you feel like you should give it back?"

So his vocal chords hadn't been paralyzed after all—not that such a thing would have stopped his soul from speaking.

The spirit smirked. "I do what I want."

"Well then, if you so obviously don't care about my opinions, why are you wasting effort seeking them?"

If Ryou hadn't stepped out of reach just then, the spirit might have been tempted to take a swing at him. But it was a valid point; he didn't care. Being here was a waste of time.

Yet he didn't leave.

Ryou ducked around a tall, twig-man figure on the board, and just as the spirit moved to follow him, he stopped, instead squinting up at the pale caricature.

He knew the face. He remembered it from the day the man sporting it had lifted the Millennium Ring from a box at a market and the spirit had peered into his mind in search of a worthy vessel. The man himself could never be called such since he was a coward in the extreme, the sort of person who thought he could hide from even his own emotions if he simply traveled far enough or clocked enough hours on the job or took one more shot at the bar. Pathetic. But the man had never intended to keep the ring, had instead meant it as a gift for his only son, and when the spirit had seen his son within his mind, he'd smirked and allowed the ring to be carried and shipped without consequence until the day came that Ryou unpacked it, threaded it with a hemp cord, and hung it like a noose around his own neck.

"Heard from your dear old dad lately?" the spirit asked, barely realizing he spoke.

Ryou stopped cold. After a drawn silence, he said, "Are you pretending to care?"

"I'm not pretending anything. I don't care. But you do. He's in the bloody center-spot of your mind. You may as well throw on a spotlight; it can't be any more obvious."

There wasn't another figurine within two arm lengths, while all others on the board were packed into small groups.

"No," Ryou said quietly. "I haven't."

"Parents are a bitch." The spirit shrugged. "Mine certainly were."

He'd hated them both until the day they'd died, and then he would have traded anything to have them back, to have his mother teach him one more secret knot even if he messed it up, to have his father take him out for one more ride even if he was a hassle. Funny how things worked.

Ryou stared at him like he'd just admitted to possessing a third arm.

"What?"

"Your parents," the boy finally said.

The spirit rolled his eyes. "What, did you think I sprouted from the ground like a weed?"

"Maybe. I don't know anything about you. You live inside an artifact the size of my hand, and you have to use my life to get anything done."

A compelling argument, the spirit had to admit. He snorted. "You know very well I was once alive."

"Sure. Okay. You were alive, and you had parents. And a scar. Now I'm a regular encyclopedia."

The spirit found he liked his host best when the boy's attitude reared its head. Such moments erased any echo of his spineless father and left Ryou entirely his own being.

"Fine," the spirit conceded. "Ask away."

Ryou squinted at him, surveying him from head to foot. "Really?"

"I have nothing to hide."

"What's your name?"

Of course he would start there.

The spirit shook his head. "Next."

"I thought you had nothing to hide."

"Next."

"How old were you when you died?"

"At least eighteen." The spirit frowned. "Maybe twenty. It stopped mattering somewhere along the way."

The embodiment of revenge didn't need a birthdate just as he didn't need a name. Such things were better left entombed.

Ryou blinked, obviously surprised to get a real answer.

Then he said, "Bloody hell, you were so young."

So maybe the surprise wasn't just at getting a response.

"Older than you," the spirit shot back.

"What about siblings? Did you have any?"

Although the spirit had access to all of Ryou's memories, they usually sat like unopened scrolls on dusty shelves. But the boy thought of his deceased family members often enough for the spirit to have gained a decent knowledge whether he sought it out or not, so he was well aware Ryou had a younger sister who'd perished in the same accident as his mother.

"None," the spirit said. "Just me, and I was the mistake that lost my dad his inheritance and got my mum disowned."

Ryou frowned. "That's not your fault."

"I didn't ask for commentary. An encyclopedia only needs facts."

"What I said was a fact."

The spirit stared him down until he shifted uncomfortably and moved on. "What did you do for fun?"

"Gods, this is like an awkward first date. Can't you come up with something that isn't a cardboard getting-to-know-you question?"

"Fine." Ryou's eyes narrowed. "Did you ever date or did you run off all the girls in Egypt by being a bloody twat?"

Unable to help it, the spirit started laughing—so much so that he had to turn away, chuckling to himself until he could get his voice under control again.

"How very presumptive of you"—he raised an eyebrow—"to assume I was Egyptian simply because of my artifact of residence."

It was Ryou's turn to stare him down until he raised his hands and admitted to liking one girl.

"Short lived," the spirit added. "Didn't even know her name."

After all, the embodiment of revenge didn't need love. Even if that love tasted like nectar and had a dimpled smile that could have charmed the gods themselves.

"How did that work?"

"I had more pressing matters to deal with."

"Wish I had your problem. I've got time and to spare, but I only seem to like girls who don't like me back."

"Such as our resident bracelet user," the spirit said knowingly. He was tempted to shudder at the thought. The woman was a downright terror.

If they'd been in the mortal world, Ryou would have blushed for sure.

"I didn't say that." As if the weak denial couldn't have been more painfully obvious.

"You know she's got eyes for the pharaoh." Another thing that couldn't have been more obvious.

"I know, mate." Ryou made a pointless gesture with his hands. "If you haven't noticed, I'm not chasing. Just like I didn't chase Miho after she told me she likes Tristan. It's just painful, sometimes, waiting for someone to notice me that way."

And the spirit couldn't help wondering if Ryou had used the word 'mate' on purpose or if it had simply been reflex.

Either way, the spirit wasn't about to get dragged into a long conversation about feelings or, worse, become a source of dating advice he didn't possess. He'd played this game long enough anyway.

"You didn't ask the most important question."

"What's that?"

"Actually, you didn't ask any important questions, and time's up."

Ryou's expression fell, though he tried to hide it. "You have somewhere terribly pressing to be while I sit in here wishing for a telly?"

"That might have been an important question to ask, but you missed the window, mate."

Well, that answered that question. Just a reflex.

"You're the one who came in here to bully me into talking." The frustration in the boy's tone was clear.

Once again, he had a point, one the spirit couldn't quite explain. It wasn't that silence bothered him. He'd lived in silent darkness for thousands of years. It wasn't that he needed or wanted companionship—even while alive, he'd traveled alone, plotted alone, battled alone.

It certainly wasn't that he enjoyed having Ryou around. While the boy wasn't quite the fangless snake his father was, he was a soft-hearted, sentimental fool, one who raised the spirit's hackles with each interaction.

"A lion always toys with his prey." He smirked. "Thanks for playing, vessel. Enjoy the solitude."

He returned to the real world, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. In his absence, the hallway had remained deserted, and the necklace had never moved from its place behind a closed door just ahead, but the spirit found he'd lost interest in hunting.

I'm fine, Ryou had told the bracelet user. No hesitation. No plea for help. The devil woman would have gone head to head with the spirit in an instant if Ryou had asked—had already proven her willingness to do so.

But he hadn't.

Why hadn't he?

The spirit scowled to himself and retreated to his room, where he stood at the window and watched the lights below struggling to be seen past the consuming onset of night.

Note: This was one of my favorite chapters to write. I hope you enjoyed it! I'm moving next week, so there won't be an update. Next chapter will be Thursday, August 22nd.