AN: Hey, I don't own Yu Gi Oh! (does that even really need to be said? I think it's pretty self-evident :P)

As always, thank you everyone for reading and reviewing and faving and following and generally being awesome and amazing! There are several of you I have to PM to thank, but, I apologize, I'm running behind as this week has been constantly either working or at school or studying or paper writing.

Anyway, thank you all so much and I appreciate your continued interest and feedback! Onto the fic b/c I'm very tired.

47. Illusion

Through the window a few stray beams of artificial light have found their way in, landing upon your face as you shift and roll over in your sleep. For a few brief moments I can study you under the light: your pleasant, slack face, your placid brow, free of worry and concern as you usually seem so fraught with. But all too soon the spell is broken and the consciousness lying beneath your dreaming mind becomes aware of an attempted intrusion; you wrinkle your nose and grimace with a grunt before rolling on your side, away from me. Though I know it's merely a physical reaction to the light, for a second I imagine that you somehow know I'm watching you. Maybe that's just my wishful thinking.

It has become habit, this. I suppose I could pass this time resting, but my body is an illusion, I have no real need for sleep. And I have spent far too long resting in that twisted maze known as my "soul room". So you sleep and I watch, sitting at your bedside or in a chair, leaning against your wall or desk.

It's strange: even though my being is only a spiritual remainder I act as though it still had substance, as though it had weight and force. Even as I form these very thoughts I'm sitting on the edge of your bed, with my legs crossed and my chin resting in the palm of my hand, despite the fact that there is no sensation in this "body" of mine, no physical fatigue that demands this position. It is all one more painful reminder that I cannot touch or feel anything in this state.

What I wouldn't give to touch you aibou. If I would give my memories just to stay with you, to touch you I would give up everything. I would stay in my haunted soul room the rest of my endless days to touch you, to feel the softness of your hair against the webs of my fingers, to know the sensation of my forehead to yours, cheek-to-cheek and palm-to-palm.

I want to pull you to me when you cry and cushion you when you fall. How many times have I held your hand emptily? Or touched your shoulders with transparent limbs? I want to repeat every touch I have ever given you, just to savor each instant in its fullest.

And every night, as I sit and watch you, I can pretend for a moment that it's possible. I imagine I could know, would know, exactly what it meant to touch you if only I reached out. Even to feel the soft cotton of your T-shirt would be like a heavenly embrace for me aibou, even if only for just a fleeting second.

It is so tantalizing, so tempting, that I begin to imagine I can feel your bedspread under me and your school uniform against my skin. And before I can rationalize it, before I can stop myself, I reach out to touch you.

My hand lands on your side, but you never stir, and I cannot feel the blankets that cover you beneath my fingertips. Though you breathe steadily in and out my hand never rises or falls in time. Despite never feeling it, when I slowly retract my hand it feels like I've been burned.

Once more I sit alone in the darkness as you rest without even the slightest shiver in recognition of my touch, evidence of that same lesson I learn each night and always fail to retain.

Oh my dearest aibou, someday I fear you too will learn that, unfortunately, some illusions are best left unbroken.

Thank you for reading, I appreciate your feedback!