Day 7: Childhood Friends AU

Sorry for the wait. Life gets a little busy sometimes!

Because I can't help these sort of things, I gave myself a little challenge when I wrote this chapter (see if you can guess it!). You'll notice that this is a bit different than my other pieces but I still think it turned out pretty cool, and I hope you like it just the same!

Snap.

Yugi's eyes fluttered open. As soon as he did, he found that the dizziness hit him harder than it had the last time, causing him to teeter and fall backwards. Thankfully, there was a soft seat to break his landing.

Closing his eyes, he swallowed the queasy feeling back down. He gripped the edge of the bed, the only seemingly steady state in his swirling scene. The worn blanket felt good beneath his hands. Comforting. Familiar. He opened his eyes again, and peeked at the blue blanket between his fingers. His brain was not playing tricks on him, it was familiar! This blanket had been on his bed for most of his teenage years. He knew exactly where he was: his childhood room.

A bookcase containing various board and video games was pushed up against the wall exactly where he remembered it. His small worn wooden desk strewn with notebooks, pens and pencils was situated beneath the open window. A picture frame was on the nightstand and turned towards the bed. The small tan rug beneath his feet was worn but tidy. It was so surreal to be back.

He knew that this could not be his room though.

During his first year of university, Yugi's grandfather had fallen ill. He passed shortly thereafter. Although he had lived a very full and long life, it still hurt when he passed and Yugi found himself still missing his grandfather to this day. But the worst of the pain and loss came when he and his mother had to sell the game shop. Up until that point, he had lived his entire life in that small private residence upstairs. He remembered running out the front door to catch up with his childhood friend Tea on their daily walk to school. He remembered the many nights spent at that small desk studying… but mostly gaming. In spite of the snags at school, his childhood was good overall and he had many fond memories and a lot of these memories stemmed from this room.

Finally feeling as if he had found his bearings, Yugi gingerly stood up and crossed the floor to look at the calendar on the wall. He chuckled. This Yugi had chosen the exact same spot to hang it as he had. According to the crossed off days, today was June 29, 2016. Yugi scratched at the back of his head. How old would that make him? Although the math was easy, this question was not straightforward. Who knows if he still has the same birthday in all of these dimensions? The counterparts of his friends he had encountered along the way had definitely been born at a different time than back in his dimension. Atem, Kaiba and Joey all seemed to be in their twenties in that post apocalyptic world, but the dates on the posters littered around had been in the year 2041.

An idea struck him, and he looked up to June 4th in the hope for answers. He suppressed a groan. All it said was 'my birthday!'. That was not helpful at all. Oh well, the answer to this question would definitely be elsewhere.

Yugi crossed over to the desk and started inspecting the items atop. Notebooks filled with math, science and history were stacked up along the right hand side, their edges slightly frayed from repeated journeys in a back pack. On a whim, he reached out and grabbed the first notebook: math. He flipped it open, and from his brief skim, he surmised that this was from a high school math course, maybe grade ten or eleven.

"So I'm in high school in this dimension…" Yugi muttered to himself as he flipped through.

Equations and instructions for solutions filled the pages, but he became more interested in the doodles along the margins. There were shapes and lines forming geometric patterns, intricate grids of boredom manifested by graphite. But there were also words. Out of place words. The most interesting of which was the word 'Friday' found at the top of page three, surrounded by stars with clumsy borders as if the pencil had ran their outlines many times. Right at the end was a single, solitary heart. Friday? And what's with the heart? Yugi glanced at the date atop the page: September 3, 2015.

In a moment of inspiration, he moved back towards the calendar in hopes of finding the answer. To his chagrin, the calendar on the wall was only for 2016. He sighed, rubbing at the back of his head in mild frustration as he returned to the desk. He finished leafing through the notebook and returned it to the desk. The history and science notebooks did not provide any more insight into the importance of that Friday.

Turning his attention now towards the desk drawers, Yugi opened up them up one by one. The top drawer was a junk drawer of sorts, filled to the brim with pencils, paper clips, action figures and other assorted toys. Yugi picked up a small red toy car with a smile. He loved these things as a kid, and clearly his other dimensional self too. Looking at that red paint, which was slightly chipped off the front bumper likely from one too many rough collisions, Yugi started to recall his childhood. He only had a few friends when he was very young and spent the majority of his time playing with his own toys and games in his room.

I wonder if this me was the same way? Oh, I wonder…

Curiosity taking over, Yugi crouched down onto his hand and knees in order to look under the bed. If he knew himself like he thought he did, there may be something here that could help him get more insight into his counterpart's childhood. He chuckled knowingly as he pushed aside a couple shoe boxes labeled 'homework' that certainly did not contain homework to find the item he was was looking for. He gripped the larger plastic container and pulled it out from underneath the bed. Blowing away the layer of dust on top, his hands then moved toward the lip, hovering for a moment in anticipation before he finally opened the lid.

In a way, this looked very much like the box he had kept beneath his bed during his childhood. It was filled to the brim with favorite toys, drawings, games, pictures, birthday cards and the like. He picked up action figures and trading cards, some of which were familiar while others were not, each receiving a fond look nonetheless before they were placed aside. His hand found a picture prone, and as he flipped it around, his heart gave a little flip as well.

Two boys who could not be any older than eight grinned up at him. His younger self had been pulled half way into a headlock by the other boy who sported similar tricolour hair, eyes screwed shut as if to make space for the wide smile that split his face. His younger self did not seem to mind. He was captured mid laugh at the arm around him. Along the margin were two names and a date written in what could only be his mother's cursive: Yugi and Atem, 2004. He smiled nearly as wide as Atem.

"We are childhood friends in this dimension!"

Curious to see more, he fished around the box for all of the pictures he could find. There were some loose ones in the box, but many were found tucked safely away from time and tear in a photo album. Yugi chuckled at the sight. His own mother had hid a similar album in his memory box. He pushed aside the toys his alternate self held in high esteem so he could grab the album and start leafing through. Sure enough, many of the pictures were of him and Atem, sometimes the only ones in frame, and other times as a part of a larger group. Other children he did not recognize were often in the shots until his visage got a bit older. It was at that time when familiar faces started to appear. Joey, Tristan, Tea, Ryou. They were all there.

As he flipped through, his heart soared with a strange form of nostalgia. These were not his memories of his own childhood, but in a strange way, they sort of were. He could practically feel the joy of his younger self as stared at the photo of him splashing in the pool on a warm summer day, a wave of water rising up from his hands to hit a none-too-pleased Atem square in the face.

As they grew older the album got sparser. The pictures became few and far in between. Those that did exist held less smiles and much more eyeliner. Yugi chuckled at a particular picture that made him look vaguely like a raccoon. He also had sported that look in the past. It had taken him several months to learn the right weight of line and several years to perfect the line every time. There were copious amounts of belts, buckles and grungy t-shirts in a lot of these photos. He had worn the same thing too at one point, and even though his own style had matured somewhat, but he still kept the some parts of his punk self near. His hand went to the buckle of the choker around his throat. Some things never change.

Atem did not seem to go through the same phase. Yugi looked to a picture where both of them would have been about fourteen years old. Atem's baggy, one-size-too-big shirts he wore as a small child finally seemed to fit him. His dark jeans clung to him perfectly and the leather boots he wore in a lot of the shots gave him an almost dangerous edge. Not a hair was out of place on his perfectly coiffed head. He looked cool. Popular. The smile he wore, which had subdued through the years had become just a touch cocky and was so fitting to his aesthetic. Yet here he was, hanging out with someone who would clearly have been labeled a misfit by the popular crowd.

Despite Atem's persistent presence in the pictures, that initial smirk seemed to fade. Soon, Atem was captured appearing more pensive, and the smiles he did occasionally wear never met his eyes. With a frown, Yugi continued to slowly flip the pages. He quickly realized that his own counterpart's smiles had faded too. His gaze lingered on a Polaroid group shot. There was something about that one group shot. All of their friends were in a close huddle, squeezing together to fit into frame. Atem and Yugi had chosen to flank the group on opposite sides. Despite their friends' smiles, Yugi could not help but notice that both boys looked like they would rather be any place but here. It all felt cold. Wrong.

What was going on? Did they have a falling out? There were nothing in the previous photos to point towards any of that that, though. Maybe he was reading too far into these pictures. It all could be easily explained by teenage angst and not wanting to pose for pictures that were probably taken by an overzealous mom or friend. He still could not shake the feeling, though. No matter his attempts at trying to explain what was going on, the cold grip on his heart remained.

As he flipped through the last two pages of photos, something odd was evolving. His counterpart's eyeliner mercifully receded, and a similar line appeared around Atem's eyes. In the next picture, he swore his alternate self was wearing the same t-shirt he saw Atem wear a couple pictures back. The next photo was a Polaroid candid of Atem and Yugi playing a board game, eyes locked in friendly competition with Joey grinning in the background. Familiar, easy smiles had reappeared on their faces in a beautiful synchrony. Whatever had gotten between them seemed to have vanished.

One last picture remained. It was picture of Atem and Yugi entwined in a similar pose to the first picture he had found. They had their arms wrapped around each other's shoulders, holding the other so close that their cheeks nearly touched. Yugi recognized that smile on his alternate's face. He looked like he was having the time of his life! As his eyes shifted onto Atem, his heart nearly stopped. Even though that Yugi's eyes were closed in joy, Atem's were open and gently trained on Yugi despite the camera's presence. Atem's smile was not nearly as wide as his own, but the emotion behind was even more powerful and it took his breath away.

This was the first time he had seen that sort of smile in this photo album. In fact, it was a smile he knew well. It was soft, attentive and honest. There was no showy half smile or pretenses. Just a quiet, almost intimate bliss conveyed by a single, simple expression. With a quiet, thoughtful hum, Yugi closed the album and sat back on his heels. He realized that his Atem smiled at him like that sometimes. Really, most of the time in recent memory. Whenever he'd tell Atem about his day, he would see that smile. Those late night cups of coffee offered during study sessions were often accompanied by that smile. Even in the heat of a competitive games night, with friends or just between the two of them, that smile would slip through.

Oh.

He ran a hand through his hair as tried to process the flurry of emotions that overwhelmed all of his rational thoughts. He… he's not…?

Despite his attempts to refute, it was clear as day from that look in that photograph that Atem was enamored. Hopelessly lost, heart adrift with no hope of an anchor in sight. In love. He would have to be blind to have missed it…

I can't believe it. I have been missing the signs this entire time! Yugi realized with a start as he jumped to his feet, his thoughts no longer about the two teens. My Atem… he's been…

Yugi let out an astonished gasp, heart fluttering in his chest, as he began to pace the room to disperse the excited energy threatening to take him over. This explains everything! I am such an idiot for missing it!

His pacing slowed a few minutes later as he tired, the adrenaline quickly leaving his system. He fell onto the bed, the wind coming out of him in a puff as he flipped over onto his stomach. He laid there for a moment, face planted deep into the pillow before finally turning it outwards to breathe. The second he brought in his first breath, it came out as a laugh as he saw a very obvious answer to a previous question.

On the nightstand was a picture frame containing the final piece of the puzzle. It contained selfie of the two of them taken right here in this room, Yugi's lips pressed lightly against a blushing Atem's cheek. He pressed his face into the pillow to stifle his laughter. It all made sense. As his giddiness subsided, he let his mind wander back to his apartment, back to earlier that fateful day. They were planning a nice night in. Yugi dopely recalled how Atem shot him that particular smile as he offered up a pizza and games night before this whole chaotic journey happened.

Wait.

Yugi sat up ramrod straight in bed as he played that offer over in his mind again. 'I was wondering if you'd like to maybe order a pizza and, uh, hang out this evening?' Now that Yugi thought about it, Atem had sounded off. A little more awkward than usual, but he had thought nothing of it at the time. It was not an unusual request, they had often spent many nights together on the couch, playing games or watching TV or simply enjoying each other's company. But with this last offer, was Atem trying to… make a move? Along the same lines, had he been trying to make moves in the past? A blush prickled his cheeks at the possibility.

He did not have much time to lament about his obliviousness, as he heard a car pull up outside the game shop. He suddenly realized just how strange it might be for someone in his family to find a much older version of himself rifling through his room. He needed to leave before he was spotted.

"I had better clean this all up first." Yugi chuckled to himself as he took in his mess. He placed the photo album and toys back in the box, pushing it under the bed. Quickly, he then proceeded to smooth the blanket and fluff the pillow. Just as he was arranging the notebooks on the desk back to how he found them, as he heard the car shut off.

Back at the window, he watched this dimension's Yugi get out of the passenger seat as Atem exited of the driver's side not a moment later. As the younger Yugi threw his backpack over his shoulder, Atem rounded the front of the car. He stopped in front of Yugi and said something, which prompted the amethyst eyed youth to laugh. Atem's shoulders shrugged briefly beneath his black t-shirt in response. Yugi watched his adolescent self quiet down as he reached out to grab one of Atem's hands, tugging it gently so Atem would take a step closer. They spoke words unheard to Yugi's ear, but he found that he did not care what they were saying. The radiant look on his counterpart's face said it all.

Atem closed the gap to roughly nuzzle a kiss onto the crook of Yugi's neck, which prompted the slightly shorter male to giggle and swat at Atem's shoulder playfully in retaliation. Atem redoubled his efforts, which only further spurred on the fit of giggles. Yugi stared out the window for a moment, a content smile on his face as he watched the two boys in love.

When I get back, we need to talk. Yugi promised himself. There was so much he wanted to say. No, needed to say. Now if only he could get home…

Yugi glared down at the device on his wrist that had become the epicenter of all this madness. It had become both his benefactor and his tormentor, leading him to people and places that had incrementally opened his eyes but simultaneously crushed his heart. He tried to temper his flare of pain and frustration, but found himself unable to.

"Dammit." Yugi cursed. He wanted to go home, but with every snap, home seemed a step farther away. He took a deep breath to steady himself, pushing away the hurt for now so he could focus on the here and now.

He looked out the window just in time to see Atem lean in to press a small, chaste kiss on his lips. Absentmindedly, one of Yugi's hands reached up to linger briefly against his own lips. The kiss was broken, and with a start, Atem pulled away towards the game shop. His counterpart called out an audible "Hey! Wait for me!" as he jogged to catch up.

Yugi's time had run out, he needed to leave before he was noticed. Thankfully, he knew Kame Game Shop like the back of his hand and the best way to get out unnoticed by the two teens who were about to enter in the front door. He stopped to take one last fond look at the room. Then he was gone.

Yugi exited the back door as soon as he heard the front door open and made his way along the wall of the shop until he finally rounded the front. He stepped off the grass onto the sidewalk and started walking away from the shop. To where, he did not know… but he now finally knew towards what.

He crossed the road and entered the park where he had played in so many times as a kid. Eventually he stopped at a bench shaded by a large tree and sat down to collect his thoughts. Placing his backpack on his lap, he took a moment to watch the pigeons pick away at seeds left for them on the sidewalk before pulling something out of his pocket. It was the tiny red car. He gently placed it in the bag alongside the spoon from his dystopian dinner and the coffee rewards card from the hospital he had been handed by the cashier. The car was a nice memento, but he had an even better one.

Yugi fished his phone out from the pair of jeans and carefully turned it on. Even though it had no service in these dimensions, it was still good for something thing. Before he had put the box back under the bed, he snapped a photo of two very special and complimentary photos. He smiled at his phone as he flipped between the beginning and now. Who knew what the future held for the these two? He hoped it was wonderful.

No sooner had he turned off his phone and placed it back in his bag, the world started its familiar dip. Yugi shrugged on the backpack as he stared at the birds with dizzy eyes. It was time for the next journey. A determined look crossed his face. From now on, he was going to try to find a way back home. There was so much to return to and so much he needed to do.

Blue light. White.

Snap.