Title: Love Is In The Words
Ship: Yubel x Juudai
Chapters: 2-2||Words: 1,500||Total Words: 3,000
Genre: Romance||Rated: G
Challenges: Diversity Writing: YGO GX: Yubel x Juudai: D8, 2-shot; Soulshipping Week Day #7, Free Day
Notes: 2nd half of the soulmate AU.
Summary: When one soulmate writes on their arm, the words appear on the other's. But Juudai never gets an answer…
Yubel watched in pleasure as Juudai's childish scrawl faded away from his own arm. Theirs tingled a few seconds later and the words now appeared on theirs. Yubel smiled, tracing one hand over the message, repeating each word, carving it into their heart.
"You should go to sleep, Juudai," they murmured. "It's late."
Juudai pouted. "But I don't want to go to sleep. I want to play with you!"
"We can play tomorrow," Yubel assured him. He curled up underneath the blankets, setting the pen to one side, and Yubel tucked him in gently.
Seeing Juudai so young again – it hurt in many ways. Yubel hadn't yet told him about who he was, who they were, and so much else that they knew he would need to know. Yubel wasn't even sure of how to tell him so much of it. In this time and this place the knowledge of the Gentle Darkness and the Light of Ruin didn't exist.
In Kuragari it had been different. He'd grown up knowing that he would one day be called upon to defend all life from the force meant to destroy it. He'd known it as long as he'd known that the two of them were soulmates.
Yubel remembered that clearly as well. They'd lived far from him, in another realm entirely. They'd wondered if they would ever have a soulmate – it was a common thought, in a world where soulmates could send messages to one another through writing on their body. On Yubel's tenth birthday, they'd taken a pen and dared to write, hoping to find someone else.
The writing faded and for several long minutes, nothing happened. Yubel began to wonder that there wouldn't be a response. Just as they started to set the pen down, their arm tingled, and strange words spilled across their arm.
What startled Yubel the most was that those were words they didn't know. Nor did they even recognize it. So Yubel tried again, and more strange, unknown words answered.
It was the priests who recognized the language – that of Kuragari, the faraway land where it was rumored the incarnation of the Gentle Darkness had been born. Yubel worked hard for another two years to both learn how to read and write the language, and then to fund a trip to Kuragari. Whoever their soulmate was, they wanted to meet them.
Learning that said soulmate was not only the Prince of Kuragari but the incarnate Darkness hadn't been anything that Yubel thought would be possible. But from the moment they gazed into Juudai's eyes, Yubel knew that they would never go back to their parents.
They'd written back and forth to one another, sometimes in one language, sometimes in another. Juudai worked hard to learn their language as well.
In due time, Yubel ended up transformed, for the purpose of protecting Juudai, and almost didn't believe it when he declared they would love only them forever. They were soulmates – soulmates weren't always romantic. How could he cut himself off from others like that?
But Juudai didn't care about that. He refused to change his mind, and by then, Yubel knew very well that he was too stubborn to do anything else. Juudai's stubborn streak didn't come up very often but when it did, he never changed course.
Yubel chose not to think about the long eons of pain and loneliness when Juudai's first life ended and they had to survive without him until he returned. Yubel knew that he would; they'd received instruction in the ways of the Gentle Darkness after the transformation, and it included the information that the Darkness always formed a mortal body when needed. The question only remained when that would be needed again.
Being so alone hadn't been easy. Spirits and magic were well-known in Kuragari but as Kuragari faded away and years turned to decades turned to centuries turned to eons, the knowledge passed from mortal folk. Yubel waited. No one spoke to them or was even aware of their existence.
That time stretched forever. Just when Yubel thought that they could bear this no longer, the sense that he existed again, that Juudai returned to them, filled them. It would take more time still until they could find him and find a way to interact with him – Yubel still wasn't very happy about this whole "card" thing but if it allowed them to defend Juudai, then so be it.
One day he will be a man again. Yubel assured themselves, watching as Juudai slept. For now they would let Juudai be a child. He hadn't had time to be one before.
The time would come when they would tell him the truth. Until then, they would protect him with all of their heart.
Yubel could feel the writing rising on their arm. But with the energy of the Light all around them, they couldn't twist and move to see the words. They wanted to but the Light simply wouldn't allow it.
Why would you want to read his lies? The voice slithered inside of Yubel's mind. If he loved you, would he have sent you away?
"Juudai loves me," Yubel hissed, longing to bury their claws into whatever the Light had that passed for a heart. "He always has."
So he disposed of you. Threw you aside. Chose others over you. The Light chuckled, like the sound of nails over steel. What a wonderful love you share.
Yubel could feel the words fading away. They wanted to see them but now the Light allowed them to move and their arm was bare and unmarked. Even if it hadn't been, Yubel wasn't sure if they wanted to see the words.
Juudai did love them. Juudai would tell them he loved them all the time. Surely he missed them – surely this had been a misunderstanding.
The Light's existence meant pain. It couldn't have not tormented them even if it had wanted to. It moved in closer. Yubel hadn't truly felt pain since the transformation – nothing was supposed to be able to hurt them, after all. Yet the Light did it somehow. Each word dug into them, bringing another wave of devastation with it.
Do you want to see him again? To learn the truth? To take him back?
Oh, yes. Yubel wanted to see Juudai more than anything in all their existence.
Then you will. You will see how he cares nothing for you – think nothing of you – doesn't even remember you. The Light had no face to smile with but Yubel knew that it did regardless. You'll see.
Yubel screamed even louder as they screeched through the Earth's atmosphere. With every bit of their strength they tried to protect themselves, but the effort failed. By the time they landed, only one part of them truly remained: their arm. The arm where so many of Juudai's messages had unspooled.
But now there was nothing. And as the time passed, no other messages came. Not even when Yubel brought Juudai and those foolish children to the world of sand and took a new form. Even when Juudai stared into their eyes and recognized nothing at all.
Not until afterward, not until Yubel fought Juudai and that filthy thief and the thief dared to end the duel in a fashion that brought both he and Yubel to the brink of death.
It was hours after that, when Yubel considered their options on how to pull Juudai to them once again, that their arm tingled and they saw words unspooling again. This time in hurriedly written kanji – demanding to know where they were – where the thief was.
If Yubel had a pen and if the question had only been about them, they might have replied. But Juudai didn't care about them. He cared about that bothersome, irritating thief.
Yubel closed their fingers on the arm where the words were. They could have found a pen. They chose not to. Their rage burned to the point that any words would have been incomprehensible.
Words didn't matter. Only actions did. Yubel had several actions that remained unfinished.
A slow and amused smile twisted their lips, regarding the unconscious thief.
Once they had chosen to keep Juudai innocent of what he was, to let him rest and have a normal child's life. But Juudai was no loner a child. Juudai needed to learn what he was and who he had been – and who Yubel was.
Yubel wanted him to hurt as much as they did – to know that they still loved him and that they understood the message of love that he'd sent when sending them into space. Somehow he'd forgotten – but he would remember. Yubel would ensure that he had. Far more than words on skin, Yubel would burn that knowledge into him, to the point that he would never forget, even if he lived and died a thousand times.
To do that, Yubel needed a weapon that they could use to teach him those lessons.
The End
Notes: And that's the end of Soulshipping Week. I had fun! Let's do this again next year!