Inveterate- having a particular habit, activity, or interest that is long-established and unlikely to change.
Nearly an hour had passed since Yami had suddenly disappeared.
They were no longer on the roof of Kaiba corp, or even all in the same place anymore. Kaiba had returned to work, he had a multi-billion dollar company to run after all and while that was fine to put on hold for a petty duel against his arch-nemesis (as they called themselves; Yugi was certain they were actually friends), heaven forbid Kaiba take an hour to help find a missing person.
Granted, none of them had even thought Yami could go missing without Yugi going missing too, and while the others were willing to believe Kaiba was skeptical that Yami was in trouble at all.
Ryo, Tristan, and Anzu had taken a trip to the library, hoping to find any sort of information about what could be happening. No one was hopeful, though, since as far as they knew (and Yugi knew quite well, since he had spent hours trying to figure out what was wrong with him before he discovered he was simply Wight) the library had almost no information on Wights similar to Yugi and Yami, and that which they did have was vague at best. Nothing that would shed light on the situation they now found themselves in.
That left Joey and Yugi, who had gone to find Yugi's grandfather.
Solomon Moto was the most knowledgeable person either of them knew; he had been the first to realize Yugi was a Wight and was the first person either boy would go to for adult advice. He listened to what had happened silently, knowing that Yugi needed to just get it out, even when the small boy stopped talking because his throat was too tight and Joey had to take over.
"You jumped off a roof?" He chided Joey as soon as the story had ended, giving the blond a disappointed, but not surprised, look. Joey flushed crimson red and Yugi could swear he saw the back of the blond's jacket shift, as if Joey was nervously flexing his wings like he had on the roof, and the sight brought a slight smile to Yugi's face despite the fact that he still couldn't hear Yami clearly. That had undoubtedly been his Grandfather's intention. "This certainly sounds like a problem," he continued before Joey could answer, taking a contemplative sip of milk.
Yugi took a deep, steadying breath, he was much calmer now than he had been before, but he still couldn't manage any further words. He simply nodded at the rather obvious statement.
"Yeah, so wadda we do, Gramps?" Joey cut in, seeing that Yugi wasn't in any sort of mindspace to keep speaking.
Solomon took a moment to take another contemplative sip of his drink; he was a sucker for dramatic pauses, and even his grandson's obvious distress wasn't quite enough to get him to just spill his thoughts without a little bit of buildup. The two boys looked just about ready to explode, though, so he didn't draw it out too much.
"I've never heard of anything like this before," Solomon admitted, but he hurried on when Yugi's face fell even more, "but I can tell you that from what I know about mind links that he's alive and probably close." While Yugi and Yami seemed to be an almost unique version of Wight, people having mild telepathy wasn't that odd. One couldn't speak with the dead, not unless that was their specific power, and Solomon had never heard of two people being able to hear each other from more than fifty miles away.
Yugi perked up at the news, and immediately his eyes slid to the left, where Yami usually stood in his incorporeal form (which, of course no one else could see), a small smile beginning to lift his lips.
Yami! Did you- No one was there.
Of course no one was there; Yugi's smile died before it had formed, and only the muffled, meaningless mumbles from his missing brother came to answer his unfinished question.
AN: … Yeah… I saw the word and was like "Ooh, I can give someone a funny little tick and lighten the mood a bit" and then I was writing and… sibling feels happened. So… Whoops.