(A/N: I'M SO SORRY, MINNA-SAN!! T.T I know it's been a month since I last updated, and I deeply apologize to you all! Most of all because I feel like I totally rushed this chapter, but I HAD to, ne?!?! -pants- It's mostly based on Yami's perspective, I had to cut a part from Yugi's, but it was necessary. I don't want to spoil anything, so before I say anything else, STUPID, on with the fanfic!

You know the disclaimer already!! Enjoy!)

Shōnen-Ai High School

Chapter 20

Yami sat impatiently at a chair beside his cousin's bed. Kerii-chan was deeply asleep, having fainted not much longer after Yami and Yugi had found her.

Yugi…

The crimson-eyed frowned at himself and clenched his teeth together so hard that his jaw began to hurt. He had been terribly cruel to the boy some moments ago. But he couldn't have told him what was happening to the blue-haired girl. Kerii had made him promise so.

He let out a long sigh, leaning his elbows on his knees, and buried his face on his hands almost as if that could take him away from everything.

Why had he made such a big, stupid, and unfixable mistake? Why, oh why, had he kissed Yugi? Why had he seen him so delicate, so fragile, so innocent, and kissed him?

What an idiot he was.

And now he was stuck between the wall and the sword… or whatever the hell it was said.

Not only that, but Kerii's stepfather was somewhere around, which obviously meant bad news.

The crimson-eyed took his face from out of his hands as soon as he heard his cousin's voice.

"Y- Yami-kun?" The blue-haired girl slowly opened her eyes and looked at her favorite relative. Good, at least now she was awake. But her face was very pale even when she had a smile on it.

"How're you feeling?" asked Yami, smiling apologetically. Kerii nodded slightly.

"Un, I'm fine," she said. "Sorry for fainting just like that," apologized the girl.

"Oi, daijoubu," he replied. Then he hesitated slightly. "Are you sure that it's him, Kerii-chan?" She nodded again.

"Completely positive, since I've already got used to feeling when he's near." Yami sighed. "Demo, changing the subject…" She moved her hand from her lap to her jeans' pocket and took out some folded sheets of paper before giving them to her cousin. "Those are the songs I was able to write. One of them is not mine, though; it's a song from one of my favorite artists."

"You were able to write more than one?" The crimson-eyed took a look at the papers. They were pretty beautiful lyrics, and he could see that the girl had erased each of them more than once.

"I know that you yelled at Yugi-kun," said the girl, earning a guilty look from her relative. "And I know it was because of the promise you made to me; for keeping it I thank you. Luckily, you know how to read the piano notes and imagine the melody. I want you to learn them so you can sing them to him, ne?"

At this comment, Yami's cheeks gained a slightly pink blush; however, he did not say a thing. Kerii smiled at his silence.

-

"Something I never thought I'd feel, didn't believe I'd ever feel…"

Yami, at his room, almost two hours later since he'd talked with Kerii, sang to himself quietly the same part over and over again. His cousin had really made an awesome job writing those songs… they were truly beautiful and unbelievably expressed his true feelings—the same feelings he was denying to admit. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, singing the next part.

"Thinking about you all day long, makes me wonder just how much, I truly, really, deeply…" He stopped there. The following words were "I love you" and he wasn't willing to say them so easily just yet, even in a song.

He couldn't. So he just kept going.

"Feeling uneasy around you makes my mind go wild and my heart beat fast, 'cause no matter how much I try, I can't actually say what's on my mind…"

Yami was beginning to think about killing Kerii himself. She had put way too much feeling into her duty. There was NO WAY he was going to sing something like that in front of Yugi!

Yugi, Yugi, Yugi Yugi Yugi…

"AAHH!" He finally exploded. Grabbing his head with both hands, he lied down on his bed. This had to stop. But how?

Well, that was simple! He was going to look for the boy, tell him exactly how he felt (probably kiss him if the chance got around), and done! Problem solved! So even if Yugi didn't return his feelings—which was obviously not an option in Yami's mind—he would get rid of that gigantic weight over his shoulders. Yes, that's exactly what he was going to do!

Just as he was standing up, slight pain shot right through his body. He knew that feeling. He'd had it a lot when he was a child, usually indicating that Joshua or Kerii needed help. But this time…

It was Yugi reaching out to him for help.

-

He ran through the hallways, out to the courtyard, searched in every room. Still no sign of the boy. Where in the world was he? Yami felt like he'd die if something had happened to his look-a-like. When he ran before the building in front of the school, the mental pain stopped. He looked at it.

Why would Yugi be near the pool? He had said that he didn't know how to swim, so why…?

And then it all fell in place.

Kerii's fainting, Emiya's supposed comeback, Yugi being where he had no reason to be…

As he got inside the building, fear took over him. No, there was no sign of either Yugi or Kerii. M- Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe he was just too worried or maybe…

He stopped thinking as soon as he saw a red-haired man holding a familiar girl by her neck against the wall. The fear he felt was replaced by angry and hatred in less than a second.

"EMIYA!" The man turned to him and Yami immediately recognized that face. The face Kerii had been afraid of for most of her life. The face of her stepfather holding her in a death grip as she probably got closer to her time of dying.

"Yami, it's been so long, hasn't it?" smirked Emiya from the place where he was without letting go of her stepdaughter. The crimson-eyed sprinted towards him, fists at sight. When he was close enough, he launched a shot at him, but the man dodged it; however, he let go of the girl, and Kerii fell to the floor, gasping for air.

"You bastard! What did you do to her?! And Yugi?! Where's Yugi?!" he yelled as the red-haired grabbed both of his fists on his hands.

"I gave the kid what he deserved for interfering!" he replied, throwing Yami to the floor and running away before the teenager could stand up. As soon as his feet got him up again, he went over Kerii.

"Y- Yu-g- gi…" she spoke, pointing to the pool. Yami's eyes widened in terror. Emiya had thrown Yugi into the pool… and the boy couldn't swim… He quickly left Kerii sitting up with her back against the wall and then he dived into the water.

And there it was, at the bottom: Yugi's body, blue and pale as a corpse.

As tears invaded his eyes, he swam to the bottom and took the boy on his arms, pressing their bodies tightly together.

Please be alive, he thought while swimming back to the surface. Please don't leave me! At the moment he reached the surface, he took a big gulp of air and got out of the water however he could without ever letting go of Yugi.

"Yami-san!" The crimson-eyed turned to the entrance and saw Ryou, Bakura, Kojiha-san and some paramedics. His sight went to the girl, who was now unconscious as the paramedics placed her into a stretcher. "Daijoubu ka?!" asked Ryou, concern filling his boy, Bakura behind him.

"H- Hai," he said, and showing the body on his arms, "but Yugi isn't!" he cried. "I don't know how long he was down there, I just got him out!"

"Yami, calm down," said Kojiha, allowing some of the paramedics take Yugi out of Yami's grip. "He'll be just fine." Some of the ones who had taken Kerii out of the building put Yugi in another stretcher and one of them pressed his hands tightly against his chest, twice, thrice, four times… until the boy's mouth opened and he spit a great amount of water, gasping. Yami smiled as soon as Yugi sat up.

-

At the hospital, Yugi had explained the whole story, or at least what he knew of it. Emiya had taken Kerii out of the school and into the next building. Yugi kind of heard her scream and so he went to check it out. Emiya forced his head into the water and when he went unconscious, he threw his body into the pool. He didn't know what he had done to Kerii, but that was something Yami said for him.

The boy had already thanked him for saving him, but Yami hadn't answered anything; just smiled kindly at him. Now they were more concerned about the blue-haired girl. She had just woken up, and barely. Her neck was full of bruises left by her stepfather's fingers, and her face could make everybody believe that she had been severely beaten up. In fact, Emiya had tried to kill her, and ran away because he thought the job was done. Kojiha said she's take care of the rest before leaving the two look-a-likes and the girl alone.

"Y- Yami, y- you do remember w- what I asked you, n- ne?" Yami nodded, knowing she meant the songs. She then turned to Yugi. "I- I'm sorry f- for dragging y- you on this…" With most effort, she raised her hand up to where both males could see it. "W- Will you keep t- the p- promise you made to m- me, Y- Yugi-k- kun?" The boy nodded too, and as she held out her pinkie finger, Yugi did the same. But before he could intertwine them, her hand fell down as if her energy had left, and her eyes had closed.

Yami held back a gasp. He took Yugi's wrist and screamed at the top of his lungs. Kojiha and some doctors and nurses got into the room; one of them pushed Yami and Yugi out of the room. The boy couldn't understand anything, but the older one did. Yugi begged him to explain with tears flooding his amethyst orbs. Even when Yami had the answer at the tip of his tongue, he couldn't yet accept it.

Satori Kerii, 18 years old, his cousin, one of his best friends since childhood… had just died in front of his very eyes. He could've sworn he had slightly heard her voice.

Farewell, cous' cous'.

(A/N: There you go. You wanted her gone? Now she's gone! And even if some didn't want her to, she had to! It's part of the story! She could no longer go on! And now I feel horribly guilty!! TT-TT Okay, except from the tragic side of the chapter, was it cute? I don't think so that much... what about you guys? Please review!

AND I PROMISE I WON'T EVER TAKE SO LONG TO UPDATE AGAIN!! Well, maybe not pinkie promise, but I'LL TRY!! I SWEAR I'LL TRY!! T.T Review, onegai!!)