Chapter 6: Love Amongst Oblivion
At first none of the mermen said a word, instead staring at Atemu as if he'd grown a second head. Then Joey weakly stammered,
"W-what?"
"Who are you?" Atemu repeated, not understanding why Ryou, Bakura, Seto and Joey were looking at him the way they were. "Where am I? Who am I?" he added as an afterthought.
Expressions of horror found their way onto the others' faces as they exchanged looks.
"C'mon, buddy," Joey pleaded, gripping Atemu's shoulders and shaking him desperately. "It's me, Joey! Your best friend! Remember?"
Atemu blinked blankly at him. "Friend…?"
Seto looked ready to pull all of his hair out.
"This is a disaster! Three days for this moron to get that human to fall in love with him, and he doesn't remember a thing? We've got to find King Aknamkanon…maybe he could go after Dartz and make him give Atemu his memory back and change him back into a merman-"
"No," Joey interrupted.
The blond was looking down at the sand, his eyes in shadow to hide the tears that were in his eyes at Atemu's memory-less questions.
"If he had his memory, he would never allow that, Seto…if he got his memory back and he knew what you did…he would never forgive you for taking away his only chance to be with Yugi."
Seto's throat tightened and he looked down. He knew very well that Joey was right.
"Who's Yugi?"
The mermen turned to look at a confused-looking Atemu and then back at each other.
"Dartz said his feelings for Yugi would return when he saw him again," Ryou remembered. "So the first thing we've got to do is find Yugi and lead him to Atemu."
"We just have to keep an eye on him after Yugi finds him," Bakura stated, "and make sure he has opportunities to get Yugi to kiss him…then he'll complete Dartz's and his deal and he'll stay human forever and maybe even get his memory back."
The other mermen nodded in agreement.
"HELLO?" snapped Atemu, very irritated at not being told anything. "Clueless person here! Tell me who are you, who is Yugi, who is Dartz, where am I, and why the fucking hell do you guys have tails?"
Ryou, Joey, Seto and Bakura all sweatdropped.
"Um…" Joey started, but Ryou cut him off.
"I'm Ryou, they're Joey, Seto and Bakura; Yugi is the human you're in love with, Dartz is the guy that took away your memory, you're on the beach and we have tails because we're mermen."
He'd said this all very quickly and in one breath. Atemu blinked twice in surprise.
"Oh…okay. And…who am I again?"
The others groaned in frustration.
"It'd take way too long to answer all your questions," Seto answered at last. "Just know that you have three days to make Yugi fall in love with you and kiss you."
"That's what that weird man said," Atemu remembered, rubbing his head slightly in perplexity. "That man with a tail sort of like yours…was he a 'merman' too?"
"Yeah… that was Dartz," responded Bakura, growling slightly at the mention of the Warlock of Orikalkos. "But don't talk about merpeople while you're up here, okay? Humans…aren't always hospitable towards us."
"Oh," Atemu said blankly. "Sure. But why are you guys here? Do you work for Dartz?"
"NO!" chorused Joey, Seto, Ryou and Bakura at once, sounding offended.
"We're here to help you, man," Joey explained. "We're your friends…well, we were your friends, since you don't remember us…"
Atemu looked guilty and didn't reply.
Joey shrugged it off. "Don't worry about it…it's not your fault…Dartz took your memory away…I couldn't expect you to remember what's not there."
"Anyway," Ryou stated in a straightforward tone, "we need to find Yugi…it's already late morning and we're running out of time fast."
"Aibou is right," Bakura agreed.
"Aibou?" repeated Atemu, looking from Ryou to Bakura in puzzlement. "I thought your name was Ryou."
"My name is Ryou," Ryou assented. "'Aibou' is a term used for life companions…mates, if you will. It means 'partner.'"
"Oh," Atemu said yet again, and he felt very stupid for having to say this one word over and over again. Unfortunately, as he didn't remember anything about himself and barely knew about what was going on now, there was little else he could say.
"If only we could get up on land too…" Seto moaned in exasperation. "Then it might be easier to find that Yugi…he could be anywhere!"
By a stroke of luck, however, the innocent prince was not that far away from the mermen and their friend-turned-human.
Yugi sat on a blanket on the beach fumbling through the puzzle pieces in their golden box while Rebecca and Chris, the granddaughters of Yugi's grandfather's advisors Professor Hawkins and General Iron-Heart respectively, ran around on the beach laughing and playing with Chris's big wolf-like dog, Sky.
Right now the puzzle was one-third-completed, and it looked like the top half of a golden Rubik's cube with a hole in the top similar to that on a charm on a bracelet. Yugi had bought a silver chain in town to put through the hole so that, when he had completed it, he could wear it around his neck.
The tricolor-haired prince was so focused on his puzzle that he didn't realize it when Rebecca put a tiny blue crab in his hair.
Yugi yelped when the crab pinched his hair with one of its small claws, jumping up and whirling around until he saw the crab fall off his head back onto the sand. Chris and Rebecca burst into giggles.
"Very funny, you two," Yugi muttered, blushing but still sounding good-natured.
Rebecca, a child prodigy with two blond pigtails and mischievous green eyes, stopped laughing and grinned.
"Come on, Yugi," she implored. "Stop putting together that silly necklace and play with us! The water's great!"
Chris, a girl slightly younger than Rebecca with her long brown hair in two low braids, nodded in agreement.
Yugi crossed his arms and gave them a wry smile. "It's not a silly necklace, Rebecca; it's a puzzle, and my grandfather had to pay a lot of money to get it for me…besides…it's more valuable than money could comprehend."
Rebecca snorted. "Are you still going on about that thing's promise of a wish? C'mon Yugi, only little kids would believe that, and I've long since outgrown magic fantasies."
"Maybe you shouldn't have," Yugi replied, looking out at the sea with a distant look on his face. "For all you know, those fantasies might not be fantasies at all."
'Like that man who rescued me,' he thought to himself, feeling an odd pang of both sadness and hope. 'I know Tristan and the others say I must've imagined you…but I know…I know you're out there somewhere…and with my puzzle's wish, I'll find you. I'll find you, and thank you…for saving me…'
His eyes narrowed slightly as he remembered the man's sharp, passionate eyes and his words to him…
"Don't worry, my little aibou…you're safe now…"
'But what did you mean when you called me that?' wondered Yugi. 'What is "aibou"?'
"Hello! Earth to Yugi!"
Yugi blinked to see Rebecca on her tiptoes, waving a hand in front of his face.
"Sorry, Rebecca," he apologized. "I just sort of drifted off…"
"Again," Rebecca sighed in an annoyed voice, rolling her eyes.
"Sky! Sky, drop it! No…drop it!"
Yugi turned around to see Chris attempting to pull his unfinished puzzle out of the mouth of Sky, who growled as if they were playing tug-of-war with a chew toy.
"Sky!" he admonished, going over. "Sky… put that down!"
He tried to help Chris get Sky off of his puzzle, but before he could, Sky had yanked the puzzle out of Chris's reach and ran away down the beach with his prize, likely to bury it.
"SKY!" Yugi yelled, chasing after him frantically. "SKY, NO! BRING THAT BACK HERE! SKY!"
'I can't lose my puzzle!' he thought desperately. 'It's my only chance to find the man who rescued me!'
"Sky! Stupid dog, come back here!"
Joey's back stiffened like a startled cat's as he heard a very familiar voice moving steadily toward them.
"Someone's coming!" Ryou immediately panicked and he started to dive back into the water, but Seto grabbed his arm to stop him as he too recognized the voice.
Both Joey and Seto turned to look at each other, eyes wide.
"Yugi," they said in unison.
And sure enough, a wolf-like dog ran toward them, holding something gold in his mouth, with the tricolor-haired prince running after it.
The dog noticed the group of merpeople and ran over to them, dropping the thing in his mouth so he could bark at them. Ryou, Seto, Joey and Bakura all retreated back to the water despite Atemu's shouts at them to come back, and the dog stopped in front of the merman-turned-human, still barking loudly.
Atemu stared at the furry creature for a moment, before moving past it to grab the thing it had dropped: a gold object on a chain similar to a side of a cube that looked like it had once been many pieces…
"A puzzle," Atemu realized, although he was not entirely sure how he knew that.
"SKY!"
Atemu looked up to see the source of the voice that had been calling the dog and his heart stopped.
The slightly shorter young man had spiky tricolor hair that shot up from his head as if he had been electrocuted, pale creamy skin and wide innocent violet eyes that were currently narrowed in determination and slight aggravation toward the dog.
Atemu couldn't stop himself from staring.
'He's…beautiful…is that…"Yugi"?'
"Sky, you stupid dog!" Yugi snapped at the wolf-like dog. "You could've…"
He stopped short at the sight of the man with wet blond-streaked tricolor hair and suntanned caramel skin on the edge of the beach holding his incomplete puzzle in his hand. The thing about him that made Yugi blush, however, was that he wasn't wearing any clothes…and he was hot.
"Um…hi," Yugi greeted, trying not to look lower than Atemu's face. "Um…my name's Yugi…I see you got my puzzle."
Atemu looked down at the gold puzzle in his hand. "Oh…this is yours?"
He handed the puzzle to Yugi, making him smile in gratitude.
'What a wonderful smile…' Atemu thought dreamily.
His dreamy thoughts of his love were quickly interrupted, however, when Sky jumped on him and began licking his face madly.
"AH!"
Atemu tried to push the playful creature off, laughing in a deep baritone pitch that Yugi found very pleasing to the ear.
Yugi pulled Sky off of Atemu, giggling in an innocent, child-like way that Atemu also found very pleasant to listen to.
"Sorry about that…Sky here wouldn't hurt a fly, but sometimes he's…a bit too friendly."
"I see," Atemu chuckled, and Yugi felt his heart leap at seeing he wasn't angry.
"Um…" the smaller of the two said awkwardly, "are you here swimming or something?"
Atemu looked down. "…No."
Yugi blinked. "Oh…are you here fishing?"
Atemu shook his head. Yugi frowned.
"Then what are you doing here?"
"I…" Atemu stammered, looking away and feeling ashamed, "I don't know."
"You don't know?" repeated Yugi, crouching down beside him and looking concerned.
"I…don't remember," Atemu attempted to explain, gripping his head.
Yugi's eyes filled with pity. "You must've gotten amnesia or something…do you remember anything?"
Atemu concentrated hard, but all he could remember was appearing on shore with "Joey," "Ryou,""Bakura," and "Seto," and the strange merman called "Dartz."
"…No."
Atemu felt an awful feeling of emptiness inside.
'I don't even know who I am…who am I? Where do I come from? Even those mermen didn't tell me…'
Yugi felt awful seeing how upset Atemu was and decided to try and make him feel better.
"Well…since you don't remember your name…maybe I can help you think of a new one…at least until you remember your old one again. Are you sure you don't remember anything about your name or your family?"
"Nothing," Atemu responded hollowly. "It's like my mind has gone dark."
Yugi's forehead scrunched up in thought before he thought of something and he smiled.
"Alright then," he said, "I'll call you Yami. It means 'darkness'…I think it suits you."
The merprince-turned-human pondered this for a moment, before his mouth turned up in a smile.
"I like it. Very well, little Yugi…I shall now be Yami."
Yugi's smile widened, glad he made "Yami" feel a bit better after losing his memory.
"Why don't you come with me back to my palace?" he offered. "We can get you all cleaned up, and then maybe we can search for your family…I'm sure they're around here somewhere."
Yami looked up at Yugi in surprise. "You'd…really do that? For me?"
"Of course," Yugi chirped cheerfully. "I'd be happy to."
Yami couldn't help but smile.
'Now I know why I fell in love with you, Yugi…you're so kind…you're like a beacon of light in a world blanketed by darkness…'
"Thank you."
Yami locked eyes with Yugi, and for the first time, Yugi got a very good glimpse of his sharp-lidded crimson eyes.
'They're so full of…passion…and mysteriousness…'
His eyes widened as he remembered the wonderful, passionate eyes of the man who had rescued him.
'…Could it be…?'
Yugi shook his head slightly to brush the thought from his mind.
'Well, if he is…' he thought to himself as he smiled at his new friend, 'and if I help him remember his past…he'll be sure to tell me.'
Then, out of nowhere, Yami's strength deflated like a balloon and he nearly collapsed; fortunately Yugi was there to catch him.
"Are you alright?" he asked worriedly.
"So…tired…" Yami murmured fragmentally. "Don't…know…why…"
I don't expect any of you to know how much stress someone's body can go through when transforming into something else, but Yami sure learned it now even though he didn't remember at the time that he had in fact been transformed into a human.
"Don't worry," Yugi assured him, pulling him onto his back so he could pull him along the beach back to Rebecca and Chris and toward the palace. "I've got you…"
"Yugi…" Yami whispered.
His mind was slowly going black; his nose vaguely recognized a pleasant vanilla cologne that must've belonged to Yugi.
"Don't worry, Yami…you're safe now…I'll get you help…"
Those were the last words Yami heard Yugi say before his mind died and he fell unconscious in his love's arms.