Chapter Text
It sounded like rain.
The thing about the sound of rain is that it's never just rain. It's clusters of tiny taps that start like impatient fingers and build until they become pounding fists. It's gurgling rivers spewing from gutters and splashes underfoot. It's disappointed and disgusted groans, the snap of umbrellas, an echo that fills the school hall as lockers slam shut. A quiet murmur that moves through everything it touches like static electricity. Amaya stood with her head leaning against the window, her eyes closed as she savored the sensation of the cool glass shivering with every drop. Down the hall, Joey and Tristan were arguing loudly as they mopped the floor.
“Maybe I'll go visit Serenity, then!” Tristan teased. The mop smacked too loudly against the floor as Joey grit his teeth in response.
“Tristan, you don't go anywhere near her!”
“Well if you're in remedial math every day, someone has to keep her company!”
Rain sounded like sneakers squeaking on a wet floor.
“Hey, Amaya!” Yugi greeted. Amaya didn't open her eyes or turn to acknowledge him.
“Hey, Yug,” she replied. “I'm surprised you're still here. School's been out for half an hour.”
He laughed, shifting his backpack uncomfortably. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you,” he admitted. “I thought someone would have already taken you home, but then I remembered Tristan and Joey both had cleaning duty today, so I figured you were probably waiting for them.” Amaya shrugged.
“They're sure taking their sweet time,” she replied loudly, and though she didn't turn her head to specifically address them, Joey and Tristan immediately stopped arguing with each other to turn on her instead.
“Maybe if somebody would get off their lazy bum and help, we'd be out of here faster!” Joey snapped at her.
“Yeah, not all of us are so lucky to get out of cleaning duty!” Tristan added.
“Hey,” Amaya snickered. “It's not my fault that the teacher is too uncomfortable to bring it up. I'm not just gonna volunteer for it.” Joey huffed in resignation.
“Yeah, yeah. Lucky broad. And we've been here half an hour already.” He nodded, as if patting himself on the back for his own misfortune, and then froze. “Half an hour?” he repeated.
“You're the one who just said it, man,” Tristan answered. In a panic, Joey dropped the mop he was holding. It clattered to the ground. His shoes whined pathetically against the wet tile as he scurried to Amaya and Yugi.
“Aw man, I'm so sorry Amaya, but I'm late to go see my sister at the hospital! Ahhhh, but I promised to walk you home today! What do I do?” Amaya opened her eyes now, turning her cheek away from the window to face him. A milky haze covered what had once been brilliantly red eyes, but they still widened in surprise.
“Joey, don't worry about me,” she insisted. “Go. Now.”
“And that means I”m gonna be here even longer finishing his half of the work,” Tristan added.
“Guys, don't worry about it,” Yugi said. “I'll take Amaya home. I wanted to talk to her anyway. Go see Serenity, Joey. I”m sure she's worried about you.”
“Thanks guys, I owe you one!” Joey sniffed and took off running down the hall.
“I call your lunch tomorrow!” Amaya shouted after him.
“I call a date with your sister!” Tristan shouted too.
“NOT ON YOUR LIFE! EITHER OF YOU!” The screech of his shoes bouncing off the walls followed behind long after he'd rounded the corner and disappeared.
“Shall we?” Yugi asked, offering his elbow to Amaya. She took it, the two said goodbye to Tristan, and left.
Outside, the rain was even louder, drumming across the top of Yugi's umbrella and spattering to the flagstones around them. Amaya drew closer to Yugi's side to avoid getting wet. It was actually kind of nice like this, like the two of them were in a small bubble, safe and tucked away from the angry sky.
“What was it you wanted to talk about?” she asked. Yugi was quiet for a moment.
“Actually,” he finally said, chuckling shyly, “It's not about me. It's about the spirit of the millennium puzzle.” Amaya remembered well their recent adventure to Duelist Kingdom. If adventure was even the right word. Rescue mission? It had only been a few weeks since then, when they had gone to rescue Yugi's grandpa from Pegasus, and in the process found out that a mysterious spirit dwelled within the millennium puzzle, which possessed Yugi whenever he dueled. Well, in the process was a relative term. A lack of sight could be a wonderful thing sometimes. While her friends insisted it was indeed Yugi dueling, Amaya had nearly lost her mind trying to prove it was someone else entirely. She had been right, of course. Their voices were completely different.
“He's been brooding lately. He doesn't remember anything about his past or his identity, and it's been really hard on him. I thought maybe you could help.”
“How am I supposed to help?” Amaya asked.
“Well...I thought if he went on a date with you, it might help him relax.” Amaya stopped in her tracks. With her arm hooked around Yugi's elbow, he was forced to stop too, and for a long moment the two of them stood under the umbrella arm in arm, the only sound between them the rain screaming around them.
“A date?” she asked.
“Well, yeah,” Yugi said.
“Yugi, I've never been on a date in my life.”
“Well that's okay. I don't think he's been on one either.”
“No, I don't think you understand.” Amaya shook her head. “A date, Yugi. With a boy. I don't even know what my hair looks like in the morning. Outside of my school uniform, I have no idea what shirt I'm even wearing. How am I supposed to make myself look good for a date?” Yugi laughed.
“I don't usually see you so worked up over stuff like this. Since when do you care what your hair looks like?”
“This is different.” He hummed in acknowledgment, as if he'd figured that much.
“He's not going to care what you look like, Amaya,” he insisted. “He likes you just the way you are.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I like you just the way you are.” He took a step forward, gently urging her to follow, and reluctantly Amaya began walking again. The pounding of the rain and the peeling of wet tires as cars passed on the street was beginning to merge and become a single mass of noise around them. Amaya felt trapped under the umbrella, like she was caught between tv static and her own racing thoughts. They crossed the street.
“Why not ask Tea? Doesn't she have like...a huge crush on him or something?”
“I think you'll be able to help him more,” Yugi insisted. “You were the first one to realize the spirit was his own person. Honestly, for the longest time even I thought he was just another personality I hadn't been aware of. Like a figment of my imagination when I wanted to be brave or strong. It wasn't until that shadow game against the spirit of the millennium ring that I started to become aware that the other me might be really...other. But you knew instantly he was someone else, even though you can't see either of us.” Amaya grumbled.
“That's because your voices are completely different and he's at least four inches taller than you.”
“Well, maybe you're right,” Yugi laughed. “But I don't think you give yourself enough credit.” Yugi led her up the front steps of her apartment building and stopped. Out of the rain now, Amaya let go of his arm and backed out of the umbrella. She sighed.
“Okay, I'll do it.”
“Really?” Yugi leapt forward and hugged her. “Thanks, Amaya! Tomorrow at Domino Station, ten AM!”
“But-” she began to say, but he was already running off.
“You won't regret this!” She heard his voice through the first peels of thunder, but he was already at the gate, and before she could respond he had disappeared into the storm. Amaya dragged her feet as she opened the door and headed up the stairs. This was really too much for her to handle. The spirit of the millennium puzzle was-
Well...what was he? Did he even have a name? She couldn't keep calling him Spirit, like he was a fucking horse or something. If she was honest with herself, the only reason she had been so insistent to say no was because she didn't know what he was. Yugi's faith in her was misplaced. She had no idea what the spirit of the millennium puzzle looked like, what he thought about, what he would think about her. Amaya had been blind for as long as she could remember, and for the most part it didn't bother her. She had no memory of the color red, or the ripple of light on water, or even the face of her own mother to feel nostalgic about. Being sighted was a passing fancy to her. But when she thought about dates, she thought about how a boy was supposed to gaze into her eyes. How he was supposed to smile at her and give her sidelong glances as they stood side by side, stealing peaks at her as if he couldn't take his eyes off of her. How a boy was supposed to tell you how beautiful your eyes are.
People hated Amaya's eyes. The cataracts made them uncomfortable. What if he hated them too? How was she supposed to navigate this dark and trap laden pit she'd just been thrown in? No one had ever taught her what a non sighted date was supposed to feel like.
She reached out and unlocked her apartment door, but as she stepped forward she tripped over something on the hall mat. Cursing, she leaned down to pick it up. It was a box wrapped in paper and tape. Her hands gazed over it, inspecting it, but there was no stamp, no indent in the paper to indicate any writing like a name or a postal address. She brought it inside and sat at the kitchen table to open it.
The paper slipped off easily. Inside the box were two things. One was an ordinary envelope, the other a small lacquered chest with raised engravings along its edges. They were metal of some kind, but whether the marks were the letters of a language she didn't know or merely decorative, she couldn't decipher. Carefully, she unsealed the envelope and pulled from it a single sheet of parchment. She was surprised. The letter was written in braille.
To our queen, the star that breaks the night
Still shining brightly
Even after five thousand years of darkness
It was unsigned. Shaking, she placed the letter back on the table. What the fuck was this? Amaya stood abruptly and opened her front door. There was no one in the hall, not a sign of whoever had left this package on her welcome mat. As she closed the door, she locked both the deadbolt and the sliding lock for safe measure. Then she moved to the sliding door that led out onto her balcony. Once again, she heard no one, not even another tenant smoking a cigarette in the alley. She locked that door as well. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. Taking a deep breath, she sat back down at the table and turned her attention to the engraved chest.
Inside it was something metal and round, made of interlocking pieces and engraved notches. At one point on the circle was an oval shaped piece with an indent in the center. Amaya was stumped. She ran her hands over the object again, but still she couldn't decipher exactly what it was. Another note was tucked into the box, this one a small, rolled piece of parchment. She read it.
Place it on your head and reclaim your throne.
Hesitantly, she took the metal circle out of the box and placed it on her head. It fit snug, the metal oval cool against the top of her forehead. A minute passed....
….And nothing happened. Amaya groaned and slumped back in her chair. She felt so ridiculous now. She'd been so paranoid, locking all of her doors and holding her breath at these mysterious messages, and all it was was some kind of jewelry. For all she knew, her neighbor, Mrs. White, had simply bought her some kind of gag gift and was waiting for Amaya to run and confront her so that she could laugh about it. After all, there were all sorts of weird shit you could buy on the internet now adays. She wished Yugi had walked her up to her door. If he had seen this, he could have saved her the embarrassment and just told her what this weird piece of head jewelry was.
And then-burning along her scalp where the metal touched her. The sensation of falling up. She felt like she was hovering a few inches above her body, and then something grabbed her by her ankles and pulled her back down screaming.
She saw herself in the mirror.
Wait.
She did what now?
Amaya wasn't sure how to describe what was before her, only that it completely different. What she usually perceived wasn't darkness, but nothingness. The world from her eyes looked to her the way the back of somebody's own head looks to them. There, but not. And this...this was anything but nothing. She raised her hands to touch her face, but as her hands brushed across her own cheek, she realized the person in the mirror didn't follow her movement. Their hair was tall and pointed, while she could feel her own smooth waves under her fingers. There was no metal jewelry to be seen. She realized she could feel herself still sitting at the kitchen table, separate from what she was seeing now. The color of this person's eyes, whether they were a boy or a girl...Amaya had no context for these colors and textures and shapes all around her.
“Now if I could just figure out what to wear,” Yugi said, adjusting the collar around his neck. Amaya froze. This was...this was Yugi in the mirror? This was...
This was what her best friend really looked like... Amaya felt her body double take in the kitchen chair.
“A date?” another voice, deeper and more mature sounding asked, and Amaya recognized it as the spirit of the millennium puzzle. At first she didn't see him, and then Yugi's eyes turned their attention to his bed, where another boy sat lounging against the wall. Once again, Amaya had no words to describe what she saw, only that his hair and eyes were similar, but he was most definitely taller. And also..transparent? Was that the word people used? Amaya had never seen anything transparent before, but she knew the word, and she knew she could see the bedspread right through this boy.
“It might be,” Yugi replied smugly. The spirit of the millennium puzzle grinned.
“I would never have expected you to be so bold, Yugi,” he said. “Who is it? Tea?”
“Nope.” Yugi smiled coyly. The spirit frowned.
“Amaya?” he asked. Amaya felt her heart thump painfully in her chest. Why did he sound so disappointed by that? Did he dislike her that much?
Amaya felt a wave of nausea roll through her, and with shaking hands she ripped the circlet off of her head. Yugi, the spirit, and his bedroom vanished. She was jerked back down, stuffed back into her own body, and the entire world of color and light was gone, replaced by a blackness she had never seen before. Having tasted sight for the first time, its absence left her brain reeling, her eyes frantically straining for any sliver of it. Amaya ran for the bathroom, stumbling, bumping into walls even though she knew this apartment as well as the back of her hand. She scrambled for the toilet....
And vomited.