A/N: Important lyrics for this one are 'Someone tell me why I do the things / That I don't want to do. / When you're around me I'm somebody else.'
15. Teenage FBI – Guided By Voices
Yuugi stared down at his own hands and wondered just when he became a superhero.
It wasn't like he ever made a conscious decision to be the good guy in the eternal battle between Light and Darkness. Not that he would've picked the dark side if he'd been given a choice, but he just kind of … landed on the front line by accident.
A lot of his life was determined by random chance and accidents.
And his friends, of course.
They'd started out as accidents too – accidental meetings, accidental beatings, accidentally fleeting, he'd thought, but they'd turned out to be so much more than that. They'd come to mean everything to him; as much his family as Grandpa and his mother. His friends had changed him, just as they claimed he'd changed them – though he'd argue until he turned blue that he hadn't changed them at all. They'd always been good people, they just had problems with showing it before, that was all.
"Pshyeah, right," Jounouchi scoffed at this, and for once Anzu actually agreed with him on something.
Yuugi looked between his friends – all his friends –gathered around his desk full of birthday gifts, and was swamped with sudden memories of all the times they'd risked their lives for him, and him for them. Even Ryou was there, head tucked under Otogi's arm to make sure he stayed put instead of trying to creep guiltily away like he usually did.
Yuugi's eyes filled with tears.
"Yuugi?" Anzu said, concerned. "Are you okay? I know it's not the same without Yami here – I mean Atem, but -"
"No, it's not that," Yuugi sniffed, fumbling in his pocket for a tissue until Honda gruffly thrust out the handkerchief his mother tucked into his blazer every morning. "It's just …" Yuugi couldn't get the words out.
How do you tell people you've just realised they're the reason you're a hero without sounding like a blubbering Oscar winner?