Title: Wings of the Soul
Ship: Ryou x Yuusuke
Chapters: 1-2||Words: 750
Genre: Angst, Romance||Rated: G
Challenges: Diversity Writing: YGO: soulmates: C5, 2-shot w/750 wpc; Include The Word Boot Camp, YGO, #29, illustrious; One Ship Boot Camp, Ryou x Yuusuke, #35, wings; GX Month 2021, day #20, Free Day
Notes: This takes place in the same AU as Your Touch. It's set just before episode 1 of GX.
Summary: Ryou developed wings when he was fifteen. But now they're shriveled and useless. Did something happen to his soulmate? And if so, what happens when Yuusuke returns?
Ryou didn't believe in unwarranted pride. His was very warranted. He could - and did - defeat virtually anyone who stood against him in a duel. His grades were the very highest in the school. There wasn't anything that he couldn't do.
Except one thing - one thing that continued to nag him, no matter how hard he tried otherwise. There was a reason he wore a cloak, no matter the weather, no matter what else. Coats might have kept him warmer, but he didn't care about warmth. That wasn't the cloak's purpose.
He could feel them moving underneath the cloak. They lived, just as much as any of his other limbs did, but he hated to even look at them. Sometimes he would slip the cloak off and spread them, just for a few scraps of exercise. Nothing he tried could change them in any way.
But now he stood before the mirror, slid the cloak off, and turned slightly. There were his wings, bent and with only a few broken feathers, incapable of flight, barely reaching to his waist, unlike true and proper wings that would have spread out to cover most of the room on someone who wasn't him.
He stretched them out carefully, reaching one hand to touch the arc of the closest one.
They're so cold. He hated how they felt. They should have been warm, and yet they weren't. Warmth would have meant blood flowing through them - or it should have. He'd had them tested once they began to shrivel. All the doctors said his wings still lived, and he hadn't contracted any diseases. Whatever had caused them to become like this, it had nothing to do with his usual perfect health.
Sometimes he wondered if he should have kept a diary, to be sure of when it even started. Perhaps he could have noted what had changed. There had to have been something. Perhaps he'd eaten the wrong food or done something that affected his wings? He truly couldn't remember.
Perhaps my - soulmate? It wasn't impossible that he'd met his soulmate and something had happened to said soulmate. Sprouting wings was one of those signs of having met one's soulmate. But surely that was something that he would have remembered? He'd considered it more than once. There wasn't anything else he knew of that could enable him to sprout wings. But he'd asked those who might know, and not even Fubuki, before he vanished, knew anything about this.
Though truth to be told, Fubuki had looked a little confused when he'd asked. Not as if he were hiding something, but as if he didn't remember and thought that he should. It hadn't been long after Ryou asked him that he'd ended up vanishing.
Ryou refused to think of himself as alone. Of course he stood at the very top of Duel Academia, but that didn't mean he was alone. He had one more year at Duel Academia, and then he would enter the Pro Leagues. He'd not yet settled on who his first sponsor would be. But he had time to settle on it.
Assured that nothing had changed with his wings - unfortunately - he picked up his cloak and settled it back over his shoulders and back. It matched the rest of his uniform, mostly white with edges of blue. Principal Samejima issued it for him once everyone became aware of the state of his wings.
Once tucked back under there, he headed out of his room. Today was the day that the new applicants would arrive for their practical exams, and he looked forward to seeing what their duels would be like. He knew Shou would be there, and a small part of him hoped that his younger brother didn't make it. Shou still had so much to learn. It might be better if he did it somewhere other than Duel Academia.
Asuka would start this year as well. Perhaps that would mean they stood a better chance to find Fubuki. Ryou looked forward to that. He almost missed the occasional teases about how high he would fly once his soulmate returned - Fubuki had always insisted that Ryou had wings because of his missing soulmate and when that soulmate returned, then Ryou's wings would fill out once again. Ryou wasn't ready to believe that, but he would much prefer Fubuki there than not being there.
Even more than he'd prefer having the wings of his soul back.
To Be Continued
Notes: Next chapter is from Yuusuke's POV!