'Do you like Games?'
'Oh yes'
An absolute thrill rushed down Yugi's spine upon reading the ghost's answer. It left shivers in its wake.
He wasted no time collecting a piece of paper from the printer, and using a black marker to draw out a Tic Tac Toe board. It was the simplest game he could think of, that required little to no explanation. Practically anyone could play Tic Tac Toe, and the ghost already proved it could use a marker.
"I'll be X's," he called to his empty apartment. Sure that the haunt would hear him. "You'll be O's. We take turns filling in the boxes, the first one to get three in a row wins."
Yugi drew an X in the middle of the board.
Then he grabbed up his things, and stopped in the kitchen to stuff a piece of toast with jam in his mouth; somehow bread had already found its way to the toaster, toasted, and was popped and waiting for him. A check of the time, running late, Yugi launched out the door to work.
He didn't even notice the shadows beneath the coffee table drop a red marker and rush out the door after him, disappearing into his own shadow before the front door closed.
Yami
The spirit adjusted his position on the throne.
Yami...
Red eyes burned under the shadows cast by his blonde bangs. They observed his surroundings with a new consideration. The thick darkness obscuring the corners of his soul room felt more intimate today. They weren't cloying and intrusive, but more an extension of himself.
I am blackness. The shadow of my host, and a darkness dwelling within his heart.
Yami.
He found the name incredibly fitting. And because Yugi had given it to him he cherished it more than any treasure. He would embrace the name. And if he was Darkness, well, then perhaps the shadows... they weren't so bad.
Yami shifted on his throne once more, the carved stone unusually uncomfortable today.
Yugi had taken the metro to work, rather than drive his car, and the sounds of city, trains, and a myriad of voices echoed into Yami's chambers. The sound far away, and washed out. Like a radio barely catching a signal. But Yugi's voice was always more clear. When his host spoke, it was like the radio suddenly tuned in, before dropping out once more.
He found himself rolling upside down. Head hanging off the seat of the throne, and legs propped up against the back. Yami stared restlessly at the ceiling.
I'm bored. Brown fingers threaded over his stomach and he tapped the toes of his boots together. I wanted to play the game...
He wanted to wander out of the puzzle, and observe the people on the train. Observe his host on the train. But it was too public. And should Yugi notice anything odd about his shadow it would ruin the allusion that Yami was only a mere apartment ghost. And for now it felt safer to let Yugi continue to believe it was his home that was haunted, rather than his actual person.
The sounds of city and metro station cutting out completely alerted him that they'd reached Yugi's work place. He could envision it in his mind's eye, the towering skyscraper of Kaiba Corp. The grandiose upper floors taking a bite out of the sky like some monstrous dragon, and the building's windows glinting in the sun like so many scales.
Work meant a private office, and a busy host... and if shadows went to play in Kaiba's office who would notice?
Yami righted himself, combing fingers through his spiked hair in a vain attempt to set it to rights again. But it was a messier mirror of Yugi's, it would never be put to rights.
He shut his eyes and let his consciousness drift away, out of the plane within Yugi's heart and into the plane of the living. His human form dissolved away, and everything faded into malleable blackness. When he opened his eyes again, he was peering out into the world through Yugi's shadow.
They were in the elevator of the Kaiba Corp building. The lights overhead rendering Yami nothing more than a dark puddle around Yugi's feet.
Up up up, they went. The elevator passing floors by at a speed that often made Yugi feel queasy.
Yugi's office was near the top of the building, only two floors below Kaiba's office. It was presumed that the eccentric CEO of Kaiba Corp wanted to keep his greatest rival close. And most days Yugi didn't mind the position because he got paid well.
Even if he had his suspicions that Kaiba didn't really keep him around to manage his expenses.
Yami followed along with Yugi out of the elevator. They trekked the familiar path to his office, and once inside, he wasted no time oozing up the wall and into the air vents the moment Yugi's back was turned.
He observed his host briefly from the security of the air vent. Watching his host boot up the computer, open his brief case and prepare for a day of pouring over the books, and approving or denying expense requests.
Yami could have yawned.
He waited, and watched. If Yugi were doing anything else Yami would have enjoyed watching him, but as it were Yami stared listlessly at all the paperwork, computers, and numbers. He waited a good long while, golden eyes shining duller than usual behind vent slats, until he was sure nothing exciting was going to happen. Then the inky black shadow slithered deeper into the ventilation. He followed more familiar paths up and up, until he could feel his soul straining at the limits of his tether.
Dark tendrils curled around another set of vent slats. A soulless gaze peered into a spacious office more grandiose and elegant than any in the entire building. There was a massive mahogany desk inside, laden with computers and paperwork. The walls were lined with shelves, cabinets, display cases, potted plants, and control panels. Pedestals stood within the office, displaying statues of Blue-Eyes White Dragons, and next to a large white leather sofa was a table with an elaborate holographic Chess board. Each of the pieces Blue-Eyes in theme.
But the office was vacant of any occupants.
Yami pushed himself through the slats, oozing down the wall like a waterfall of ink, before coalescing into a Yugi shaped mass once more.
Golden eyes blinked open at his surroundings, bringing the whole room into better focus.
He drifted purposely towards the chess board; circled the board, once, twice, studying the layout of each piece with careful consideration. Many of the pieces were already moved around from previous plays, and Yami reached a hand down to move a black bishop across the board, taking a vulnerable white knight.
The board responded by highlighting the white pieces, signaling it was White's turn to move again.
Satisfied, Yami drifted away. He would wait until tomorrow to make his next move.
Oddly enough, he was far more excited to start playing the game with the paper and the markers at home with his host, rather than mucking around with this gaudy chess game.
He worked his way towards one of the shelves. Pausing in front of a display of Duel Monsters figures. Mostly populated by Blue-Eyes figures, but there was at least a single Dark Magician among them.
Shadowed arms slipped behind the glass panes, picking up one of the Blue-Eyes and manipulating the joints until the dragon was on all fours, head bowed low. He did this to three others. Setting them all around the Dark Magician like penitent dogs bowing to their master. With the last dragon he adjusted it so it too was on all fours, but it's head was placed level and nose right up against, the Dark Magician's crotch.
Golden eyes arched in amusement, and shadow fingers retracted from the case.
What he wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall when Kaiba returned to his office today.
Yami continued around the office. Poking around paperwork, reading over Kaiba's latest schemes. All the while keeping an eye open for anything that might be concerning to Yugi. Should Kaiba ever try to double cross his host again, Yami wanted to be all too prepared and one step ahead of those plans.
But there was nothing amiss.
So he took this moment to settle into Seto Kaiba's ridiculously tall backed desk chair, and spun it to face the wall comprised entirely of windows.
His golden eyes stared down at the city. One dark leg crossing over the other, and shadow hands steepled fingers before him. It was his best impression of Kaiba.
For a long while he appreciated the view. Cars, like tiny ants, traveled the streets below. Sunshine glinted off neighboring buildings and skyscrapers. The occasional helicopter buzzed by. As far as the eye could see the city was alive and busy. And from Yami's vantage point he bore witness to all of it. Like the king of a city comprised of metal, glass, and concrete.
He noted this was Seto Kaiba's view everyday. And it was no wonder the man had an ego the size of a horse's ass. Twelve asses. This view alone was enough to make even the spirit feel power drunk.
It must have been an hour or more, relaxing in the luxury of the chair and the sleek modern surroundings. The sunlight shining through the glass would be warm, it's rays falling on him, but unable to penetrate his darkness. Though Yami couldn't feel warmth as a shadow, he remembered how the sun felt on Yugi's skin. The sun was heat, light, love, and life, a blessing from Ra.
He closed his eyes to bask in it.
A feeling of exasperation suddenly overwhelmed Yami. It chased away his previous contentment. He shot up from the chair as emotions bled into him like wine spilt over canvas.
Exasperation laced with... affection?
Immediately recognizing these emotions were not his own.
Darkness shot over the floor and up the wall, wriggling back into the air vents with enough force to dent one of the slats.
"Yugi!"
The door to his office was thrown open. Yugi didn't even lift his eyes from the expense reports covering his desk.
"Do we have the budget to construct an elevator to space?" Seto Kaiba demanded as he stood in the door. His frame casting an imposing shape in the threshold.
Growth spurts had been generous to Seto into adulthood. He was over six feet tall, and pretty much towered over Yugi, who was a whopping 4'10" and a half.
"No."
"You haven't even checked over the budget yet."
"That's because I already know we can't afford it." Yugi continued to check numbers on his current file. "Why do you need an elevator to the moon anyway?"
"It's to space," Seto corrected gruffly, "and Jeff Bezos bought a rocket, so I want an elevator."
"Where would it even go?" He was just humoring his employer at this point.
"To my space station," Seto explained, matter-of-fact.
"You don't have a space station."
"I will soon. I started construction plans on one last month."
Yugi thought, and recalled Seto storming into his office to ask if he could afford a space station when he'd first started. At first he'd assumed Seto was playing a trick on him. Joking. Yugi quickly learned he was dead serious. He had tentatively told Seto "no," because honestly it was an outrageous expense and it was not something the company could afford without drawing funds away from other projects Seto had also deemed "important."
It seemed the CEO hand gone ahead and commissioned a Space Station anyway.
Yugi breathed out through his teeth. "I feel like you only hired me to ask my opinion, give no fucks about what I tell you, and simply do it anyway."
"That's a distinct possibility."
He finally looked up at Seto, and saw the CEO grinning down at him with a sparkle of dark amusement in his steel blue eyes.
Yugi smiled back despite himself. Nameless feelings squirming in his gut. "You're a pain in the ass."
Seto barked in laughter and crossed his arms over his chest, muttering, "I could be."
Yugi blinked. Could or can? His cheeks heated, awash with confusion on whether he heard his boss correctly. He decided he must have heard wrong and replied, "Can be? No you definitely are."
Seto shrugged and was smiling ever so slightly when he continued, "So about my elevator..."
A stapler hurled through the air at the CEO, and he deflected it with the oversized sleeve of his white trench coat.
"Go buy out Amazon, and then we can talk." It was intended to be a jest, but Seto's expression grew serious at the suggestion.
"Is that a promise?"
"Out!"
"Don't tempt me."
Seto stepped back and swung the door closed just as a box of tissues followed after.
Yami shifted restlessly in the ventilation as he watched Seto Kaiba make a hasty retreat from Yugi's office.
Something as dark and twisted as his form curled inside him. Gnawing and vexing.
He didn't want to play in Kaiba's office anymore. He didn't want to sit here and watch Yugi grin down at his paperwork. He didn't want to feel his host's emotions rolling over him like waves through their mind link.
Yami wanted to go home. He wanted to play the game on the paper with the X's and O's. He wanted to respond to more of Yugi's questions, and not sit here seething in a mass of sick feelings that he could not understand.
Suddenly alone time in his Soul Room—surrounded by dark corners, foreboding architecture, and suffocating silence—didn't sound so bad.
The moment Yugi was distracted, he bled down the wall, and slipped back into his host's shadow. Then he fell away, deep deep deep, into the puzzle resting above Yugi's heart.
The last thing he did was shut out their mind link. Mentally putting his world on mute. So he wouldn't hear Yugi's voice echoing into his chambers, and so he wouldn't have to suffer the perplexing emotions rolling off his host like fog from fog machine.
He spent the rest of the day submerged in darkness and let his mind float away on a sea of midnight silence.
When Yugi got home from work, he noted that the Tic Tac Toe game had not been touched. There may have been a swell of disappointment that fell over him like a wet blanket. But there was a red dry erase marker on the floor that hadn't been there before. He picked it up and placed it back on the table.
The white board still had the question and answer from the night before. And he wiped his sleeve over it, and started anew.
'How old are you?'
'Can I see you?'
'Are you the one eating the food in my fridge?'
As he stared at the questions it occurred to him that so far their conversation relationship had been very one sided. Surely this ghost would be curious about him, and was simply being polite? He squeezed a fourth question below the other three.
'Do you have any questions for me?'
That was an invitation. He wondered if the apartment's ghost would be chatty enough to put forth its own questions. Satisfied, he set the board back on the coffee table and wandered into the kitchen to fix dinner.
When he returned forty minutes later, with a plate of stir-fried noodles and vegetables, he noticed a red O. It was drawn in the space to the right of his X.
Excitement flared, and he very nearly fumbled his plate.
His eyes flashed to the white board with the questions, daring to hope. But those were left unanswered.
"I see where your priorities lie," Yugi laughed. He dropped the plate of noodles onto the coffee table, spilling some over the edge from his eagerness. He was grinning widely when he drew another X on the paper. "Prepare to lose, Yami!"
The puzzle hanging off his neck pulsed.
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