43. Never Alone – Barlow Girl
The first night he spent without Yami, Yuugi slept badly, and then not at all. The hotel room was unfamiliar, the rotating ceiling fan a constant distraction. He tossed and turned, finally rising to pace and then sit on the wicker chair in the corner. No matter what he did, he couldn't get past the gaping puncture wound in his own mind.
He'd been fused with Yami for so long that being without him felt strange, even though he'd lived more of his life without a spirit sharing his head than with one. Everything was different now. He wasn't the same person he'd been before he solved the Millennium Puzzle, when his life had altered so much that the Yuugi Mutou of two years ago would've gaped in amazement to know what was going to happen to him. He wasn't even the same person he'd been when he arrived in Egypt. The Yuugi of two days ago would have gaped that he'd actually gone through with it and exorcised his own brain.
Yami – no Atem – was better off now. He'd moved on, just as he was always supposed to. Just as Yuugi always knew he would. He'd known when the plane touched down in Cairo, but knowing it and knowing it were two very different things.
The 'someday' from the end of that sentence had never tasted so bitter before.
"I miss you," Yuugi whispered into the pulsing void, but all he heard in reply was his own voice. It was all he'd ever hear from now on.
It echoed.
Did other people's inner voices echo, or was this just a product of his imagination. It felt like he was grieving. Maybe he was.
In the morning he'd feel better, when he saw his friends and knew that he wasn't really alone, but at this moment Yuugi felt lonelier than he ever had as a bullied social pariah with no parents.
He put his face in his hands and wept until the sun came up.