Thank you to everyone who sent supportive reviews, and kind words. Love you guys: HD, 1121, Plantea, Floor 6351, Sam, PhatPandaPo23, Maysoon, and especially Royal DA. (You were my favorite) Just to give a shout out to the peeps who left names. You guys were a light in a very stressful time for me. Stay awesome you beautiful people. I hope you enjoy this new chapter.
Ryuji Otogi had to unlock the same apartment lock three times before the door finally opened.
He almost questioned if the key even worked for this lock, but after the third attempt, the door finally gave. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Yugi had given him the key on the first day he'd began assisting his boss after the accident. But it was six in the morning and he was really doubting that Yugi had intended him to use the key like this.
After the incident with the couch and the teapot fire yesterday, Seto Kaiba had instructed him to be there earlier. The instructions had been to "assist Mr. Mutou in his morning rituals," but Ryuji suspected that it was simply to babysit him.
"Overprotective bastard," he muttered as he stepped into the apartment.
The interior was still dim, everything cast in shadows with only the barest of morning light filtering in through the kitchen windows and curtains.
He stopped in the entry to take off his shoes, the security lights from the hall washing over him and just barely illuminating the living room. He'd only managed to remove one shoe when a peculiar feeling began crawling over his spine.
It was prickling, a trail of icy ants skittering, starting at his lower back and pooling in the base of his skull. The feeling, it was almost like... like he was being watched. His head shot up to scan the living room, couch, chair, corners, desk, kitchen, hallway...
The interior was vacant.
"Yugi? Are you awake?" Ryuji popped off his other shoe, and tentatively set them on the shelf.
Silence was his only greeting.
Quietly, so as not to wake Yugi in case he wasn't up yet, Ryuji moved through the living room. It was early, and he was exhausted from a late night tinkering with his game, so he decided to make a pot of coffee. No doubt his boss would appreciate the gesture, and maybe the intoxicating scent would entice him awake.
He knew his way around the kitchen well enough, and had fixed a pot of coffee before. It wasn't much trouble to set a fresh pot brewing in Yugi's automatic drip machine. The weird feeling still loomed over him, and despite the sunlight from the windows he flicked on the kitchen light as well. Upon seeing the scorched mark on the countertop he recalled they'd never cleaned the kitchen from the mess of the day prior, he reached into a drawer and withdrew a dish rag.
Ryuji was about to begin cleaning only to realize that everything was already spotless. Dishes washed, strainer emptied, counters wiped clean aside from the permanent scorched ring.
He wasn't sure whether to be astonished or irritated. It was his job to assist Yugi and it appeared Yugi was doing all the work on his own, fractured pelvis be damned.
If Kaiba ever caught wind of this he'd be fired. Ryuji just knew it.
But Yugi wasn't the sort to do that. Was he? Ryuji barely knew his boss, aside from admiration of his public accomplishments, but the impression he'd gotten was that Yugi was not one to say a bad word about anyone. A man had run him down with a car and Yugi wasn't even mad. Well, not outwardly. He'd overheard a portion of the conversation Kaiba had had with him yesterday, and it sounded like Yugi was trying to find sympathy for his attacker.
Who does that?
Ryuji was certainly not that forgiving. He wasn't even involved in the car incident in any way, and he'd only been familiar with the former PR manager in passing, but if he ever met Mr. Mashima again he swore he would clock the man. Twice. In the nose. Maybe more.
He took a deep breath, savoring the early scents of brewing coffee in the air, and placed the dish rag on the countertop. He could still make breakfast. That was assisting.
Ryuji checked the refrigerator, noted that all the ingredients he needed were available and began taking them out and arranging them across the counter. Eggs, rice, vegetables, there weren't any fish, but he found some leftover grilled chicken.
He collected a knife and cutting board and was about to start prepping when movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention.
Something had passed by the kitchen door.
"Good morning. Did I wake you?"
Curiously he received no response. But the movement he'd seen had entered the living room.
Ryuji, turned away from the counter, knife still in hand and an uneasy feeling churning in his gut. The feeling only worsened when he stepped into the threshold leading into the living room.
The contrast of light from the kitchen making the dimness of the living room even more difficult to make out. But he could just make out Yugi's silhouette sitting on the couch, the familiar shape of his spiked hair.
"I made coffee," he squinted, trying to adjust his eyes. "Would you like me to make you a cup?"
Yugi didn't answer, didn't even turn, it was almost like he hadn't even heard him speaking. The unease he felt intensified until a cold sweat began to dot the back of his neck. No matter how he squinted he couldn't seem to make out any details on the man sitting on the couch, and every nerve in his body was screaming at him not to approach.
Suddenly the hall light snapped on and Ryuji span around. His eyes fixed on the illuminated and very sleepy looking Yugi at the end of the hall, leaning on a crutch.
Ryuji yelped, juggled the knife in his hands, and very nearly dropped it on the floor.
"What are you doing in my apartment so early?" Yugi yawned, "It's not even seven." His diminutive little boss was scrubbing the sleep from his eyes, and dressed in baby blue Sonic the Hedgehog print pajamas, with most of the pattern consisting of a spattering of golden rings.
Ryuji whipped his head back to the couch—it was vacant—then back to Yugi who was on the opposite end of the apartment.
"How did you...?" Chill upon horrible full body chill worked down his frame.
"How did I, what?" Yugi blinked blearily at him and hopped forward on his crutch.
Ryuji pointed a shaking knife at the living room couch, then gestured to Yugi. "You were in the living room two second ago. I saw you," he stated with a little more force in his voice than he thought he had in the moment.
Purple eyes stared at him, then past him to the living room, and it looked like sleepy gears were beginning to turn in Yugi's mind. Finally they seemed to click into place as realization morphed his expression. But if Ryuji thought he was getting an answer for the strange occurrence he was sorely mistaken.
"Why are you even in my apartment right now?"
"You- I'm here because Kaiba told me to show up early. He didn't tell you?"
Yugi scrunched up his face, and hopped down the hall towards the bathroom. "Seto hasn't spoken to me since he stormed out yesterday."
"He instructed me to start showing up at your place before seven," Ryuji explained further. "He's concerned you need the assistance performing your morning rituals."
Yugi halted at the door to the bathroom and gaped at his assistant before puffing out his cheeks in irritation. "That high-handed bastard! I do NOT need a babysitter! The tea was an accident! And I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, nothing bad even happened! And it's not like you could have prevented me from falling off the couch! Who the hell does he think he is? Someone get me my cell phone, I'm calling that man—why the heck are you holding a knife?!"
Ryuji looked down at the knife still clutched in his hand, then back up at Yugi. He smiled sheepishly. "I was cutting vegetables for breakfast, and I forgot to put it down."
"Seriously, Ryuji, you show up in my home at half past six standing at the end of the hall holding a butcher knife?! Are you out of your mind? This is like the set up for some horror movie."
"It's actually a paring knife," he corrected.
Yugi's expression dropped to one of unimpressed exasperation. Then he disappeared into the bathroom without another word.
A half hour later Yugi hopped into the kitchen on his crutches, dressed in a t-shirt and sweat pants, hair brushed though not styled, and looking a little more awake than he had before.
Ryuji arranged a plate of grilled chicken, a rolled omelette (tamagoyaki), some rice, and a cup of vegetable soup on the counter. The kitchen table was still covered in Monster World paraphernalia, and the living room coffee table was currently home to a random assortment of two player games that Ryuji had never seen Yugi play with anyone.
Yugi didn't even question the placement of the food, and snagged a slice of the rolled omelette on his way to the coffee maker. He stuffed it into his mouth and hummed appreciatively. "I forgive you for coming into my home like a Slasher villain."
"The ladies love my cooking," Ryuji winked playfully.
"That would explain why I never attract any ladies," Yugi professed. "I suck at cooking and I usually eat a lot of junk. Anzu brings over rice balls all the time because she thinks I can't feed myself." Leaning on his crutches, Yugi prepared himself a cup of the freshly brewed coffee. Ryuji watched him skeptically as he shoveled four spoonfuls of sugar into the cup, but kept his mouth shut.
"So, I'm here all day it seems," Ryuji lamented apologetically. "What's the on agenda?"
"For starters," Yugi took a sip of his coffee and nodded in satisfaction, "we are going to call Seto and give him a piece of my mind. And then I'm calling my Mom and Grandpa because I want to shower really badly. After that, we are going to work out when I actually want you to show up at my place."
0000
Yami breathed a faux sigh of relief—his puddled form expanding and retracting despite his inability to breath—when the apartment was finally empty. Well, aside from Yugi of course.
Yugi's Grandpa had been busy running the Kame Games shop, but his mother had happily shown up to help her son take a shower and get dressed for the day. She stayed for lunch after that, chatting with Yugi and his assistant, before she bid them farewell and returned home to help her father manage the afternoon shift.
It was a little after lunchtime that Yugi had finally noticed Ryuji was antsy as hell. He was pacing constantly and kept glancing at the clock, frequently taking a lock of his curly black hair and twisting it nervously around his finger. Yugi tried to ask him what was up, several times. Ryuji refused to speak of any personal errands or appointments he needed to attend to, but it was obvious even to Yami that the man needed to go.
Thankfully Yugi picked up on it, after the pacing became near unbearable and dismissed Ryuji with a playful, "get the heck out of my apartment, Otogi! Be free!"
Ryuji had only attempted to protest once—which Yugi quickly shut down—before he expressed his thanks, and practically bolted out the door. But not without shooting Yugi a text to tell him that he would show up at a moment's notice should Yugi need him again that day.
"Alone~" Yugi swooned, gingerly falling back against the arm of the couch to stare up at the ceiling.
He dropped his right hand down the side of the couch, until his fingertips brushed the carpet.
Yami stared at the hand for a whole minute from his hiding space beneath the furniture.
The hand shifted a bit closer to his hiding space. The ends of fingers subtly curling in an almost inviting gesture.
As if entranced, Yami manifested a hand from the shadows and brushed his own fingertips against Yugi's palm. The hand flinched, but didn't withdraw, and after a second those fingers sought out his own palm, returning Yami's gesture.
A strange feeling bloomed in the Shadow's chest. Expanding, hot and suffocating, despite the fact he didn't breath. Why did it feel like he was dying? Or how he imagined dying. This was how dying felt, right? Robbed of breath and being incinerated from the inside out?
Yugi's small fingers tentatively gave his hand a squeeze, and Yami felt the edges of his form quiver and the tightness at his core seemed to increase ten fold.
He could almost feel himself losing touch with this plane of reality, his mind beginning to sink, to start that fall back into the puzzle where existence was easier, more natural. Where he had a body of sorts that could properly feel.
What would this simple touch feel like in the soul rooms? Would it feel warm? Real? Something more than pressure? Would those fingertips across his palm make him shiver? Would it tickle?
Would it feel like dying in there too?
An intense longing coursed through him over and over like blood through veins. A craving so acute for simply the experience of someone's touch.
Well... Yugi's touch. That would be my preference.
He wanted to hold Yugi's hand in their soul rooms...
"Do you want to play a game with me?" Yugi's gentle voice broke the silence in the room, interrupting Yami's internal crisis. "I have Super Mario Party. And you can play as King Boo if you want."
There was an awkward pause as Yami's mind collected itself, pulling all the threads of his consciousness back into the plane of reality. Game. My light wants to play a game. Game game game.
"You know... because you're a ghost. I'm sorry, that was tacky wasn't it?" Yugi gave a falsetto laugh that Yami enjoyed immensely. It was his favorite laugh.
He had to remind himself that Yugi was waiting for a response.
Snatching up the red marker that he'd been keeping under the sofa, Yami scribbled a hasty response on his white board and pushed it out for his host to read.
'Yes!'
Another giggle, "I'll try not to make such tacky jokes."
Oh, the joke. That's not what he'd been responding to. He snatched back the board, and the marker squeaked as he added onto his response.
'Yes! I want to play the game with you.'
He couldn't see his host's smile from his hiding place but he could feel the swell of happiness through the mind link. Watching from the shadows, he saw Yugi grab for his crutches and panic thrummed in his mind.
'No! Let me get the game set up. Please stay seated.'
Yami had to pat Yugi's foot three times to get his attention. He tapped a finger on the corner of the board to alert that he'd written something.
"You know, every time you do that it reminds me of Thing from the Adam's Family. All I see is this hand reaching out from under the couch to gesticulate at me."
'I'm sorry?'
Yugi chuckled again. "Don't be. I think it's kinda cute."
'An unspeakable horror prowling under your furniture and you think I'm cute?' It was hard to express the right tone through text, his dry amusement.
"Just be glad I'm not Ryou. He would find you incredibly sexy."
Yami rolled his golden eyes and narrowed them in mirth. He scribbled out his next response a little messier than usual.
'Spectrophilia. Should I be concerned when he comes over? He might attempt to mount your shadow.'
That sent Yugi into a hysterical fit of laughter, and Yami almost jumped from the suddenness of it. The sound was infectious, delightful. Yugi's own emotions bleeding into him and merging with his own, clouding his mind in a pleasant haze. His form oozed at the edges, wisps of blackness curling around the legs of the couch, and one unconsciously brushed over Yugi's feet before he quickly pulled himself back together.
The beautiful laughter trailed off.
"Is that where you normally hide?" Yugi asked, sounding a little breathless, "In my shadow?"
Nervousness churned within. He wanted to answer honestly, but would it disturb his light to know the truth?
'Your shadow... is a... preference.'
He traced circles with his finger over the carpet while he waited for Yugi's reaction.
"Is there a reason? Or is it just cozy?" Yugi didn't sound the least bit put off by the revelation, and continued with his friendly amiable inquiries. It was slightly relieving.
'You could say it's cozy. But mostly I enjoy watching you do things, and it's the most convenient place to hide.'
"Neat. It must get boring stuck in the house all the time. I guess I don't blame you for being curious about me."
'I do get very bored. Close your eyes now, so I may set up the game.'
He couldn't see Yugi from his hiding space, but he heard the subtle rustle of fabric. A brief moment passed then Yugi called, "ready!"
Yami rushed forth, dark form racing over the floor towards the entertainment center, and had risen up from the floor in front of the television before it even occurred to him to check if Yugi was peeking.
A chill shot down his being and he stared motionlessly, straight into the black surface of the screen.
I trusted him implicitly, without hesitation.
Yugi's words from the previous night echoed in his memory, "I want you to show yourself on your own terms. Not because you feel bad, but because you trust me. Do it because you want me to see you..."
Dark fingers curled into fists at his sides. Ripples of tendrils broke the edges of his silhouette, a visual manifestation of the turmoil within. I do trust him. And if he says I will not scare him, that must be the truth.
Yami forced himself into action, refusing to look back at Yugi to check. He reached a tentacle out and plucked Mario Party off a nearby bookcase, while picking up the Nintendo with his hands and ejecting the current game. Another tentacle put Fire Emblem back in its case, storing it on the shelf as he popped the little Mario Party cartridge into the system. Then he collected a controller for himself, and one for Yugi, before finally finally turning around to see his host.
It seemed his trust was not misplaced. Yugi still had his hands clapped over his eyes, waiting patiently for any sort of signal from Yami that things were ready.
Golden eyes crinkled with profound relief and appreciation.
He strode forward, collecting the remote off the end table, turning on the TV. Then he gathered up the heated blanket, and placed it and the game controller on Yugi's lap.
Still his host kept his eyes covered.
There was a moment of hesitation. Yami eyeing the other side of the couch with intense consideration. It would be so easy to just sit down right there in plain sight and signal to Yugi to uncover his eyes...
Part of him wanted so desperately to reveal himself. To lay himself bare, and shed the reservation binding him like the heaviest lead shackles. The freedom of acceptance and honesty. Trust.
They could simply be... friends.
Memories flickered. Terrible memories of people burning, the acrid scent of charred flesh, screaming and tortured victims of dark games. Terror warped expressions as they all stared at him. The agony and suffering he so callously inflicted upon people he'd felt deserved it at the time. They were scared of him.
They should be scared of him.
By all rights Yugi should be scared of him.
The thought of Yugi being truly frightened of him made his insides crawl wretchedly.
Yami closed his eyes and melted into the floor, retreating back to the safety of the shadows beneath the furniture. A shadow tentacle dragged the second game controller along with him. He reached out and turned on the electric blanket, before placing a hand over Yugi's feet, a signal that it was safe to open his eyes again.
The game began, Yugi seated on the couch and having taken the cue from Yami, had the heating blanket tucked around his lap to keep his recovering pelvis warm. Yami stayed under the couch, peering out from the gap, and playing the game from his safe space.
The cheerful music from the game helped ease some of the dark emotions churning under the surface. If he just threw himself into the game, the chilling memories would fade back into the blackness where they belonged.
They each chose a character. Yugi took his time, looking over the custom dice of each character with careful consideration before he finally picked Wario.
Yami was half tempted to choose King Boo, simply to humor his host, but ultimately decided to play as Waluigi. The two of them chose to play as a team against the computer, rather than a free-for-all.
His fierce competitive nature demanded the free-for-all, but Yami couldn't deny there was also something very appealing about this partnership.
"Is there a sneaky strategy behind your character choice?" Yugi asked curiously, "or did you choose him to match me?"
'He's not especially good, but I wanted to be partners with you.'
He could hear Yugi's sharp inhale and felt warmth bleeding through the link. The happy emotions that radiated off of Yugi were like the sweetest high and all he wanted to do was drown in them.
"Alright. Partner~ Very Hard of Master mode?"
The designation made Yami's metaphorical heart thrum. Partner...
'Do you need to ask?'
"Master it is. We'll play in Megafruit Paradise, because that's the hardest board in my personal opinion."
'We will crush them, regardless.'
"You talk like you've played this game before."
'Perhaps I have. I may or may not play your video games when you aren't around.'
"Is that where all those mysterious highs scores keep coming from!?" Yugi asked incredulously, then added in an accusing tone, "The ones that keep bumping me out of all the top spots?"
'It's a distinct possibility.'
There was a cute growling noise. "Oh, after this we are playing classic free-for-all mode, and I am going to CRUSH you."
'I'm looking forward to it... Aibou~'