Title: Love Is In The Words
Ship: Yubel x Juudai
Chapters: 1-2||Words: 1,500||Total Words: 1,500
Genre: Romance||Rated: G
Challenges: Diversity Writing: YGO GX: Yubel x Juudai: D8, 2-shot; Soulshipping Week Day #3, soulmates
Notes: Soulmate AU. What else would I do?
Summary: When one soulmate writes on their arm, the words appear on the other's. But Juudai never gets an answer…
He knew that Yubel couldn't answer him. Where they were, they didn't have anything they could use to write with. But that didn't stop him from grabbing onto the nearest pen and scrawling all over his arm.
Are you all right? I'm really sorry. Juudai stared at the writing, trying to think of what to write next. How could he tell Yubel that he did this because up there, in space, was something that could help them? Something that would show Yubel how not to hurt other people, since they didn't seem to want to listen to him.
He started again. I want you to come home soon. Please come home soon. What else? Oh. He knew. I love you, Yubel.
"Juudai."
He turned at the sound of his name to see his mom standing in the doorway. She could see what he had written, before it faded away, and she frowned.
"Juudai. I know you want to think that card is special, but – it's not your soulmate." Yuuki Masami sighed a deep and heartfelt sigh. When Juudai started to open his mouth, wanting to deny that, wanting to tell them that he'd seen his words appear on Yubel's arm and their own words had appeared on his, she shook her head. "No. All of that is behind you now."
Juudai stood up, keeping a firm hold on the pen. "Yubel's going to come home," he declared. "And then we're going to be together forever."
He headed out of the room, wanting to send more messages to Yubel, somewhere where his parents wouldn't see.
Masami sighed again as he staled out to the garden. Six years old and as stubborn as could be. She wasn't that surprised. She was that way herself about a few things. Perhaps it had something to do with how the kids ignored him these days, after those horrid months where anyone he played with fell into comas.
She considered, then headed off to have a chat with her husband. She'd seen the dark circles under Juudai's eyes. He hadn't been getting anywhere near enough sleep since that whole contest thing when he'd insisted on sending that card into space as well. And he woke up screaming more often than he didn't.
That couldn't last. She'd heard rumors of a special treatment. It wouldn't be easy nor would it be cheap but if it helped – if it worked – then it might be what they needed to do.
Juudai was different, afterwards. He slept peacefully through the night, as he hadn't in a long time. He never spoke Yubel's name. He was aware for a while that he'd had a medical treatment, but he seemed to forget about that too as time passed on. He never spoke of dueling. He paid enough attention to his classes to pass them, but that was it.
And he never wrote on himself at all. Everyone knew that if you had a soulmate, then what you wrote on your arm would fade away to appear on theirs. After the card had been sent into space, he'd written for hours at a time. Now he didn't write anything at all.
His parents were almost relieved when he picked up a few new cards and started to duel again. He wasn't quite the same as before, but maybe he would start on the road to being the boy that they'd always wanted him to be.
Juudai twitched and turned, tossing on the bed, trying to get himself calmed down and not doing a very good job of it. He trembled, hot tears in his eyes, pain clawing at his heart.
He knew, without knowing how he knew, that he'd done something horrible. Unforgivable. He didn't know what it was, only that he had. Because Yubel wouldn't have been so angry at him if he hadn't.
Whatever he'd done so they were – had been – he didn't know – so angry at him, he wanted to fix it. He wanted them to no longer be angry.
He clawed at his memory, trying to get past the huge block in his mind. It had always been there, but he'd never thought much about it. He vaguely recalled having been in the hospital when he was seven or eight. He wasn't sure why. Had it been or his appendix? Or tonsils? He'd always assumed it was one of those. But what if it had something to do with Yubel?
It must have. He strained harder, wanting to figure this out. But while that huge wall in his mind had a few tiny gaps in it, he wasn't able to get through it all.
He did remember a few points. That he'd known Yubel when he was a child – around the same time that he'd been in the hospital. Maybe before. That something had taken Yubel away and he'd hurt so very much.
Why? He scraped incessantly at the wall, until a small bit of it fell away ad he rolled over, grabbing for a pen from the desk. He stared at his arm, then quickly wrote as fast as he could.
He'd tried a few words before, wondering if he had a soulmate out there. He'd never had an answer, and he'd told himself that he didn't have a soulmate. That if he wanted to fall in love he'd have to do it the long and hard way. But no one he'd ever met really struck him as the type of person that he wanted to be with like that.
Now he scrawled on his arm. Where are you? Where's Johan? Why did you do this? Yubel?
The words faded away into his skin, as if they'd never been there at all. He waited. Was he going to get an answer this time? Would there be something?
For a few seconds, he thought that his arm tingled. People told him that it felt like that when your soulmate started to write back to you. There was a vague hint in the back of his mind that agreed with this. But nothing happened and he wasn't even sure if the tingle actually existed or if he just wanted it to exist.
Hane Kuriboh floated in through the window and trilled at him. Juudai tensed at once. A new gateway opening, at the old graveyard? He hadn't been there in ages. If he could get there, if the opening really existed,, then he could go looking.
He could find Yubel. He could find Johan. He could get all o this sorted out at last.
He pulled himself to his feet and grabbed for his backpack. He didn't use it very often, but now he threw a couple of changes of clothes, some of his spare cards, and a pen into it. He left Jerry Beans Man on the desk, along with his PDA. Wherever he was going, he wouldn't need that. It wasn't as if he would do his homework there.
Whatever it took, he would find Johan and Yubel. Johan didn't deserve to be trapped somewhere because he'd saved them all. Yubel – he wanted answers. He wanted so many answers. And Yubel was the only one who had them.
He knew, again without any sense of why he knew, that Yubel was still alive out there. That duel hadn't been able to kill them. So he would search until he found them both. And he would get what he wanted.
Haou never wrote on his arm. He didn't care. Yubel was out there; he knew this as strongly as he ever had. But if Yubel chose not to answer, then he wasn't going to waste his time. He knew where his faults lay – he hadn't protected his friends the way that he should have. So he would do it this way. He would take this entire world and make it his. Then whatever friends he had left would be safe.
Even if they hated him for it. Even if they ended up attacking him and having to die themselves.
Juudai relaxed on the bed, warm all over, and debated if he wanted to try writing on his arm. The pen was in reach if he decided that he wanted to.
"And why would you do that?" Yubel murmured, folding one wing around him. "I'm right here."
Juudai laughed, reaching up to brush his fingers against Yubel's wing. "Because it's fun. Because I like to do it." He felt like it linked the two of them even more so than their souls now being one did.
He picked up the pen, considered for a few minutes, then wrote on his arm. The words faded away, only to appear on Yubel's. They glanced down at it, and smiled, pleasure in all three eyes, before they leaned forward to kiss him.
"I love you, too," Yubel whispered, and Juudai leaned up as close as he could. They were already one being. If he wanted to be even closer, then so be it.
To Be Continued
Notes: On Free Day this week, the 27th, I'm going to write the second half of this, from Yubel's POV.