Chapter Text
It happened suddenly: A single moment in the restless, inorganic pursuit of time and a stilted gasp of scattered, wanton breaths from city-damaged lungs. For an instant, beneath the purple aura of the universe, the world was suspended from existence and life wavered from one beat to the next—and then it was over—and then he was gone.
Again.
The conversation between them had been brief: hours managed into minutes and pressed into seconds. Neither of them could quite prepare for the last conjoined beat of their heart, as the light ran away and left an ever-present chill in the surrounding air, and the final ending spilt from the false horizon over the Kaiba Dome. The tension around Yugi, once charged from the spiralling duel with Diva, was made placid and exhausted by the exchange; by the heartfelt plea straining from Atem’s sombre mind to his. Yugi felt ripped from the inside out as the words rushed through his subconscious:
We are together, one and always. Atem’s eyes shone, saying what his lips could not, as the colours of Ancient Egypt flooded through the pitched, darkened landscape of Yugi’s deserted and too silent mind. My partner.
When he came down from the ethereal high, Yugi met the silent prodding of his head again—it nearly broke him, standing alone in the massive stadium, not quite understanding the quiet; the intrusion from Atem’s spirit had filled the deep cast of his shadow and now, once again, he had been stripped of the sun-drenched warmth and the sweet smells of cinnamon he had greeted openly – one might say fondly – like the encompassing embrace of an old friend missing for years—and again.
Again. Again. Again. Again. Why did he have to feel it again? Why did he have to be ripped apart again?
Yugi picked himself up and stood through the grating silences, the hallowed conversations. He did everything to get through and get home. He spoke to his friends; spoke to Kaiba; spoke to himself as he wandered back to the Gameshop tired, sweaty, and sick from the sudden evaporation of the spirit’s passing presence through him. He lay down in bed and slept for two days, waking in fits of muttering and murmuring, thinking and feeling the existence of something, of someone, of all their flaws and blemishes—but he was never able to grasp them, to hear anything more than a faint, evoking whisper and feel their lingering pressure against his arms.
Again. Again. Again.
When, finally, Yugi pulled himself out of bed on Monday and went to Graduation, he felt briefly refreshed and able to stand and walk and sit and converse without tired fingers slicing into his head and pulling through all of his memories. They hurt, his memories, he realised when the night drew down around him and he hit the streets running with Joey, Tea, Bakura and Tristan. They hurt, they did; his memories of himself and Atem and all they had done together—it hurt in a way it never had before.
His friends noticed – because they would, and because it was obvious, even to Yugi, he was not himself. He had not been himself for a long time, now—but this was different; a different not-him.
It was made that much more evident when they stepped through the door to that nightclub, as soon as he felt the pressure on the back of his neck and knew someone – an old or new foe; it made little difference – was watching him. The sensation was prickling, forceful, and he wasted no time in practically somersaulting into a duel with all the exhaustive excitement he remembered having once had, before the again, again, again mantra had started in the Kaiba Dome.
For the first time since their latest goodbye, Yugi felt alive.
It didn’t take a socking genius, although Joey would argue he was one, to see Yugi for what he really was nowadays: what, or rather, who, he’d slowly been progressing into since before the Diva incident.
Yugi hadn’t just been a host for the Pharaoh’s spirit, and they hadn’t just shared a connection and a body for so many years – no way! The supposed minuscule differences between them and the ‘End’ in Egypt—well, Joey had been there through the thick and the thin, through the Island and the City and all the weird bits in between and, though at times he might have considered it, he’d now come to the realisation it was the damn truth, or at least near to it: The ‘End’ had definitely not been the ‘End’.
Not for the Pharaoh’s influence on Yugi, that’s for sure.
He’s just, wow, he’s just so much like him, thought Joey briefly, fleetingly, as he chowed down on a hotdog, sitting on Domino City’s sad excuse for a beach. It was Yugi’s apology for getting them kicked outta the club. Apparently, that idiot duelist Yugi had (rightfully, legally) challenged was the owner’s half-wit brother, and no one was allowed to win a duel against him. What a dud!—Even Tristan coulda duelled circles around him! Jeez.
Yugi slaughtered him in three turns. It was brutal. He’d spoken through the whole thing, loud and pride, openly and with absolute conviction he’d previously kept stowed away. He’d said things with witty, unconfined confidence, and duelled with every ounce of his deck’s bullish strength, seeing through the idiot for what he truly was: A big baby who hated losing. Yugi put him in his place, though, and made some telling remarks about becoming a better duellist—yarda-yarda—and then they’d gotten kicked out when the half-wit idiot baby complained! Well, they’d never have Joey Wheeler as a customer again. Hah!
Throughout eating, Joey watched as his friend picked himself apart from the inside out. Despite the liveliness Yugi had shown while duelling, he’d since gotten noticeably quieter and subdued—but even so, he still wasn’t acting like the Yugi Joey loved as one of his greatest friends. Nah, this Yugi was... older, with crushing and crushable confidence in equal measures. Whether he was aware of it or not, Yugi was obviously (subconsciously? Eh?) trying to step into those well-worn leather shoes.
You’re becoming just like him, Joey concluded, a short smile quirking his lip. He ignored Tristan calling attention to it, compelled to by the sharp look of determination in Yugi’s eyes when they turned on him. His eyes, once round and innocent, had gained a natural slant in recent months, telling of smooth intelligence and well-settled, aged worthiness. Encompassing was a good word for him and his eyes: Yugi’s eyes encompassed the galaxy and all her knowledge.
I shoulda worked harder in English. I coulda been a poet.
It didn’t take a genius (but, as already established, Joey was definitely a genius) to see Yugi had captured the essence of Atem through their years together, and they’d become one and the same. Why become so deliberate about it now, though? Grief? In memory of him? Or maybe just because that was how it was meant to be? There was definitely something to it, so Joey thought; some sadness, something like Yugi needing the elements of him, of Atem, of needing to make up for what he’d lost.
Joey’s smile faltered with observed understanding, but he quickly upturned his lips when Yugi asked if he was all right. “Yeah. I’m good, Yug.” But was Yugi? They’d figure it out eventually.
They were good at that.
Oh, you’re trying to be so much like him, Yugi, thought Tea as they strode through the bustling airport a few weeks after graduation, manoeuvring around the crowds with relative ease thanks to Yugi’s more than casual celebrity and his well-photographed head of hair. It was a sight, really, watching Yugi – the once short, stumpy, socially-awkward Yugi – break from their group to sign a few autographs every now and again with the cool confidence he’d acquired recently.
The old Yugi never would have done that so fluidly—but would Atem? He had been grandiose, yes, but Yugi had kept him in check while allowing Atem his own-brand of boundless courage. Their partnership had been a balancing act and, to Tea’s sudden realisation, that balance was once and for all completely, absolutely gone. Yugi, who had had to spend so long acknowledging ‘The Other Me’, was now struggling with the loneliness of his one true personality and it was manifesting in some... She wanted to say surprising ways, but perhaps it wasn’t so surprising? Was it a surprise Yugi was falling inside the black, unable to regain neither the entirety of himself nor the entity of Atem?
He was still attempting to sustain two different personas by his own creation, melding them slowly into one—into a connected mess of himself and Atem, but without Atem there to balance him out. He was, Tea realised with a mixture of sadness and pity, wearing himself down... And there wasn’t anything she could do about it, not where she was going. The struggle he was undertaking was personal, traipsing through the same trauma the Pharaoh had for all those years: the identity crisis.
Was Yugi replacing what he couldn’t live without by taking on traits? By slowly following the course of history? He was growing up slenderer, Tea had noticed, his body slowly fashioning into the wiry handsomeness of Atem with all its sharp edges and flickering movements. Was this how it was meant to play out? Was this the fate Yugi would come to?
“So much like him,” muttered Tea, as the loudspeaker proclaimed her flight to New York was boarding. As she turned, flashing a smile over her shoulder at them, she whispered beneath the cheers, “Be strong, Yugi.”
The rest, as they say, would be history.
Tea had been gone for a month now, and Tristan’s absence from the group had gotten continuously and noticeably prolonged since taking work in his father’s factory. Bakura saw him once or twice on the street, hurrying this way and that. Sometimes he was in a suit; sometimes in workout clothes; sometimes with a pretty young woman from their humanities class on his arm. He definitely hadn’t deserted them, Bakura knew, but Tristan – like the rest of them – had a life, now.
Then again, Bakura wasn’t wholly sure he could be officially counted in the ‘having a life’ bracket.
Bakura idly stirred his cup of tea, staring around the large Domino City shopping centre as he waited patiently for Yugi to arrive. They were meant to meet in ten minutes, but Bakura arrived earlier to have a catch up with Duke. “So, Tristan’s off with his girl, Joey’s off duelling, and Tea’s in America, right?” Duke chatted during an apparently lax moment at the stand, his boss having enticed a woman from one of the high-end clothes retailers into the storage rooms. Bakura shivered at the thought and doubled his focus on the conversation.
“Exactly right, yes,” Bakura replied, the unsubtle hitch of his high British accent settling in the back of his throat.
“And Yugi’s...”
Bakura flicked his eyes around them before turning back to Duke. “Oh, Duke. He’s so much like him now.” He wrapped a hand around his cup, setting the stirrer to one side. “It’s depressing.”
“You mean – ah – the Pharaoh?”
“Yes.”
Duke leant his elbow on to the counter, his expression as puzzled as Bakura felt. “What d’you mean it’s depressing?”
“I mean- I mean I haven’t... I haven’t changed as such. The spirit of the ring didn’t change the basis of who I am: I’m still British.” Duke parted his lips and raised an eyebrow, sweeping a look from Bakura to his cup of tea. Bakura continued speaking, having not noticed the look—but if he had, he wouldn’t have mentioned it. “But Yugi... Well, he’s just different, Duke; you’ll see what I mean when he gets here. His confidence isn’t the same as it was – it’s not humble, now, but so much more like Atem’s. He walks defiantly, he squares his shoulders—and when he duels, Duke...” Bakura took his tea, sipped, set it down and reached for one of the stale biscuits Duke had given him from a packet he found beneath the sink. He dipped it into his tea. “His voice mellows out; it’s like he channels the Pharaoh.”
“But... The puzzle’s... gone, right?” Duke asked, though he already knew the answer: They’d discussed it a few hundred times by now. “D’you think it has something to do with their connection?”
“Not vividly,” Bakura replied primly, talking around the mouthful of soppy biscuit. “The puzzle’s gone; the spirit’s gone. But Yugi—he’s growing up to be so much like him. It’s like being a vessel for Atem’s soul for so many years changed Yugi’s entire way of it all.” He sighed, shaking his head. “It’s depressing because there’s no Yugi and there’s no Atem—there’s just this sad mixture of them both.”
“Speaking of Yugi,” Duke coughed, gesturing. He leapt behind the counter, readied the coffee machine and, after serving Yugi the black coffee (“No sweetener? You used to have sweetener...”), Duke whistled and cleaned and tried hard not to appear as if he were eavesdropping on his friends’ private conversation.
“It’s so good to see you, Yugi,” Bakura said with a blessed smile, his cheeks slightly brightened. “How are you enjoying life?”
“It’s good, thank you,” Yugi responded, his voice having progressively gotten a little lower over time; it wasn’t as deep as Atem’s, but it had that fluid laugh and that slight purr—that same dangerous undercurrent. “Now that my grandfather is semi-retired, I’m taking on more duties in the shop: stock, inventory—I’m thinking we’ll branch out a little, to bring in some more customers.” He stirred his coffee and did not meet the other man’s gentler, searching eyes. “Duel Monsters isn’t the only game out there worth playing, after all. There’s plenty more trading cards we can stock, and I was thinking we’d buy up some niche games, too. Where there’s special interest, there’s money – and, to be honest, the shop could do with some repairs.”
Although it became clearer as Yugi bristled on through his chatter, it took Bakura a moment to realise Yugi’s concentration never once left his mug as he spoke, the shine of his eyes never shifting up or away from it. He was distancing himself, and that was rather too plainly obvious and Bakura... wasn’t sure what to feel about that.
It felt anti-Yugi. He was and would remain for several years yet the King of Games: the champion of Duel Monsters, and of course he still picked up his deck every day before coming out—Bakura could see it, carefully-sleeved in the pocket of his coat, but- oh, Yugi...
Was that the Dark Magician deck? Or something else? Bakura narrowed his eyes and leant a little closer, trying to fix his sight on the picture poking ou- “Bakura?”
Startled, Bakura flung himself back against his chair. He sat up straight as his tea, thankfully no longer boiling hot, sloshed over and into his lap. “Ah...!”
“Bakura!” Yugi leapt to his feet, his voice deepening all at once. “Are you all right?”
“Check his pulse, Yugi!” Duke called out, half-joking, though it went unheard by both Yugi and Bakura in that moment as the Brit started awkwardly rubbing his hands into his sodden jeans.
“Oh, drat. I-I’m sorry, Yugi! I wasn’t concentrating,” Bakura replied, his skin prickling beneath his striped tee-shirt from the heat of his drink. “I— I suppose I really should – oh, I’m really sorry.”
“Please,” Yugi started, raising his palms, trying to down the attention coming to them from passersby. “Don’t apologise. We should get you to a medical centre, though; burns are definitely not something you should take lightly, Bakura.”
Bakura stared up into the fierce eyes of his friend, seeing the unsettling similarity to Atem’s rapid-thinking personality in them; the eagerness of life had been replaced by the awareness of mortality and, all of a sudden, Bakura felt he was younger and in the presence of the wise Pharaoh. He brought himself back to the present a moment later, shaking his head. “Yugi, really, I am fine.” Unpicking the strong fingers clasping his shoulder, Bakura pushed Yugi away and stood up.
“Tissues.” Duke appeared at the side of their table, handing a wad of tissues to Bakura. He then turned to Yugi, one hand up. “Don’t worry, Yugi. Bakura was here for a while before you, so I doubt his tea would cause any serious physical damage... His pride, however...”
Bakura blushed seventeen shades of red and took his leave to the mall bathrooms at Yugi’s request to check he really was OK—otherwise, they’d definitely be heading to the medical centre. Although Duke stuck around to chat a while, he was on the job and customers started coming thick and fast as the afternoon wore on. Yugi sat down and finished his drink, allotting his time to glancing through his recently-remade deck while he waited on Bakura.
When the Brit arrived, twiddling his thumbs, Yugi was up immediately and the two were off to the Domino Hospital. Bakura assured Yugi nothing was wrong, but the insistence in his voice and eyes was reminiscent of the past and, begrudged, Bakura agreed to go and see a medical professional to confirm it would only be blisters at worst.
Getting the all clear was still a relief, though.
Leaving together, Bakura said, “You didn’t have to hang around, Yugi. You probably have much more interesting things to do than make sure a little tea incident doesn’t lead to my imminent death.”
“Nonsense,” Yugi replied, his voice somewhere between heavy and light. “It was nice to see you, Bakura. Do you need to go anywhere, now, or...? I mean, we could hit the arcade or...”
“Actually, I have to pick up dinner. I don’t want to bore you, though.” Bakura wafted his hands at Yugi, and then towards the rest of the city. “I’m sure you can probably find something much more interesting to do – look over there! There’s a duel going on.”
Yugi turned his head and stared for a moment at the two young duellists facing off against one another; one had just summoned Toon World, and his opponent was looking on in distress. “Interesting,” Yugi replied, turning back to Bakura. “All right, then. Would you like to meet again soon?”
“That would be wonderful, Yugi! When’s Joey back?”
“Another few days, I think.” Yugi’s voice had, briefly, returned to its pitched one as he spoke languidly, his fingers brushing into his pocket to remove his deck. “I dare say he’ll want to duel me when he gets back, so maybe I should get some practice in.”
“You don’t need practice, Yugi,” Bakura replied, grabbing out his wallet. He shook it, a few droplets of tea flinging off, and he gave a noisy sigh. “Maybe I’ll head home and change first... Bye, Yugi!”
“Goodbye, Bakura.”
Bakura flicked a look over his shoulder as he left. He eyed Yugi’s raised posture and the heightened tilt of his chin and abruptly paused to watch him walk across to the duellists with purposeful strides, hands in his pockets, and in the shadow of daylight Bakura swore for a few heartbeats it was Atem.
But then, a moment later, it was Yugi and his deck and Bakura inhaled as he turned to walk back to his apartment.
As he walked away, he sent a silent prayer to the universe, should it be listening: Oh, Yugi, please: don’t try to be him.